Ethical investment report on Westpac Group
Report written by Ta Nhat Linh (Danielle)

Student’s number: 21833
Course: BAE – Class: 5
Teacher’s name: Mary Cayley, Paul Roxanas

Table of contents

Executive summary…………………………………………………………………..3
Introduction……………………………………………………………………………5
Background information on ethical investments………………………….........5 1.1. What investors consider when investing ethically?..............................5 1.2. Whether socially responsible investments are profitable or not?.......6 Evaluation of Westpac in terms of ethical investing…………………………...8 2.1. Ethical corporate behavior…………………………………………………..8 2.2. Respect for the rights of their employees………………………………..9
Evaluation
6). Moreover, it is the triple bottom line that affects the organization’ commitments and demonstrations, which can change the view of market participants on the entity’s image and positive brand attitudes (McDonald 2008, p. 2). Thirdly, commitments of the company to demonstrate corporate social responsibility are likely to raise its reputation, competitiveness, and attraction of right employees and even preferred strategic suppliers. These factors could be promise for possible successful investments with expected returns.

However, many opponents of corporate social responsibility argue that it may increase expenses on shareholders due to rising operation expenses. According to Milton Friedman (cited in Beal et al. 2005, p. 14), triple bottom line can be considered as a process in which the rights of shareholders are deprived by creating the organization’s obligations to others groups (stakeholders) and the money spent on maintaining this relationship is likely to be a tax on shareholders. Another obstacle of the ethical investment issue is the limitation of portfolios. Michael Knoll (cited in Hoggett et al. 2002, p. 5) states that very possibly investing ethically will be riskier than investing conventionally and many opportunities to invest in potentially high-performing companies will be missed. Currently, some supporters of corporate social