The gift of green investing Sharing lessons with our grandchildren on ethical investments By LeLand B. Hevner s a teacher of personal investing for over a decade, I have heard many stories from former students. One that I found particularly inspiring came from a grandmother. After attending a personal investing class I taught at a local college and reading my newsletter on ethical investing , this retiree told me how she used what she had learned to give a unique gift to her 13-year-old grandson. For several years she had given the boy a sum of money on his birthday. This particular year she gave him a gift of 100 shares of a “green” investment. Drawing on information from my newsletter, she selected an Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) for this purpose having the symbol PBD—a diversified clean energy investment. This ETF gift also gave her the vehicle to provide the gift of education. Using information found at Finance. Yahoo.com , she • explained to her grandson the concept of “green” technology and the various types of alternative energies produced by the companies owned by his ETF, including solar, wind and biofuels; • discussed how green technologies benefit the environment; • taught the boy how to use a financial Web site to track the progress of his ETF and how to access daily news headlines related to the entire green industry; • made him aware of the career possibilities in the “green” industry, GRAND MARCH APRIL
http://www.Finance.Yahoo.comhttp://www.Finance.Yahoo.comhttp://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=pbdhttp://www.naoi.org/newsletter/GreenInvestments.htm
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of GRAND Magazine - March/April 2010