Invested Interests Catalyzes Divest from BP Movement
Recently, some Americans have started to move towards divestment as an alternative to boycotting BP. Startup company Invested Interests has developed a free personal finance tool that enables users to identify whether their mutual funds are investing in BP or its many subsidiaries, enabling them to divest their holdings easily. The free tool has generated a substantial amount of interest in a short period of time and helped to propel the divestment movement. The rate of growth of signups has risen more than 300% in recent weeks.
A rash of recent articles about the ineffectual nature of boycotting BP gas stations has left Americans searching for another way to voice their anger at BP's oil spill in the gulf and the inadequate clean up response. The boycotts cause financial distress for gas station owners but have negligible impact on BP, which sells gas through a wide variety of stations under other brand names. Divestment has served as a powerful agent of change for both companies and countries; most notably during the divestment from South Africa movement and most recently during the movement to divest from companies that are directly or indirectly supporting genocide in Darfur.
The movement to divest from Sudan originally brought Invested Interests into the spotlight and it became a hub of activity for that divestment movement. The involvement led to articles in media outlets as diverse as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times. Now Invested Interests is becoming the center of and vehicle for the nascent movement to divest from BP.
Americans are considering divesting from BP for a number of reasons. These include punishing BP for having insufficient safeguards and no contingency plan, avoiding the personal financial risk associated with holding an equity stake in the company given its unknowably large liabilities as well as sending a message to the industry as a whole that the poor planning which led to the spill won't be tolerated and that the status quo is unacceptable.
Brandon Small, the founder and CEO of Invested Interests, has said "The oil spill in the gulf is the worst environmental disaster America has ever seen. BP failed to take necessary precautions and didn't have a contingency plan. Americans want to send a message to BP to indicate that sort of behavior is unacceptable. If everyday citizens wish to impact the current and future actions of BP and the oil industry, then they have to hit BP in its wallet. We're proud to help America drive that message home through the divestment movement."
The company, founded in 2005, relaunched this year after building a new suite of free tools for users. Those tools include "screens" for 17 different issues, including environment, defense and gambling. Hence, a user could indicate that he/she holds $10,000 of Fidelity's Blue Chip Growth fund and find out exactly how much of his money is going to companies that aren't environmentally friendly (or labor friendly, or are invested in defense companies, etc.). Invested Interests aggregates its information from multiple investment research houses that research social responsibility and sell their findings to professional investors. Invested Interests decided to buy that information and use it to build a tool that it offers to the public free-of-charge. The company's revenue comes from advertising and connecting users with mutual funds and companies that go out of their way to do well by doing good. The company's operations are based on the belief that everyone should have a right to know whether their money is being used in a way that undermines their values.
For Additional Information
To get advance information about Invested Interests' new divestment tools, contact Brandon Small at brandon@investedinterests.com or Aaron Michel at aaron.michel@investedinterests.com and visit the website at http://www.investedinterests.com/issue-screen/bp-involvement or www.investedinterests.com.
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