Janine Firpo was featured in a piece from Up Journey about questions to ask a financial advisor before hiring. 

“Will you help me invest my money in a socially responsible manner?”

According to research by Morgan-Stanley, 85% of U.S individual investors and 95% of millennials are interested in sustainable investing, yet many financial advisors do not offer this type of analysis as part of their services.

In some cases, advisors know about how to align money with values but choose not to bring the subject up with their clients because they do not want to be presumptuous. Instead, they wait for their clients to initiate the conversation. Therefore, if socially responsible and environmentally sustainable investing is important to you – ask about it!

Make this question a key part of your financial advisory interview and due diligence process. If an advisor tells you that values-aligned investing is not profitable in most asset classes or just too hard to achieve, keep looking.

As sustainable investing becomes more commonplace, you’ll find a growing number of financial advisors who will claim expertise. But when you dig a little, you find that sustainable investing is not central to their business.