July 30, 2023 • 51 mins
Have you ever wondered if your investments could pack a powerful punch for both your wallet and the world? Dale Wannen, veteran wealth manager and founder of Sustainvest Asset Management LLC, takes us on a deep dive into the transformative realm of sustainable investing. With over two decades of experience, Dale illuminates the journey of sustainable investing, debunking the myth that prioritizing ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) factors means sacrificing financial gains. From using ESG ratings to avoid the pitfalls of greenwashing to highlighting the growing influence of electric and hydrogen vehicles, Dale provides a comprehensive and insightful exploration of the rapidly evolving investment landscape.
Let’s not stop there. We turn the spotlight onto the power of small investors to effect meaningful change through shareholder activism, a compelling topic that often gets overshadowed. Dale unravels how, with the right tools and knowledge, even the smallest investor can influence the trajectories of publicly traded companies. We navigate through the process of compiling shareholder proposals, the role of regulatory bodies, and the crucial importance of casting informed votes.
Lastly, we delve into the vast and exciting possibilities that the future holds for sustainable investing. From the burgeoning popularity of robo advisors and AI-driven investing, to the intriguing potentials of cryptocurrency and the metaverse, Dale shares his predictions and insights. His recent book, 'Don't Feed the Clowns: Sustainable Investing for Everyday Life,' serves as a beacon for those looking to align their investments with their values. Join us for this empowering and thought-provoking conversation that will inspire you to contribute positively to our planet's future, through informed and responsible investment choices.
Sustainvest Asset Management LLC
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
When it comes to your investments, would you like to
align your money with yourvalues and put your money into
companies that are actuallymaking a difference?
Today, my guest, dale Wanin,will show you how you can use
your money to influence positivechange and helps steer our
world toward a more sustainablefuture.
(00:28):
And if you're thinking rightnow, oh no, this is going to be
boring, think again.
Dale Wanin can make investingseem sexy.
Dale Wanin is the founder ofSustainVest Asset Management LLC
, an independent registeredinvestment advisory firm focused
(00:49):
on sustainable investing.
He has over 20 years ofexperience in wealth management
with a commitment tosustainability.
In his new book Don't Feed theClowns Sustainable Investing for
Everyday Life, dale Wanin givesyou an insider's view of the
world of sustainable investing.
(01:10):
Welcome to the show, dale.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thanks very much for having me.
Wow, what an introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you've been involved with wealth management
for decades.
What prompted you to focusexclusively on the world of
sustainable investing?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Wow, let's sit back and grab a drink and really get
into it here.
That's a long time ago andactually one key moment happened
when I wasn't an advisor and Iwasn't doing sustainable
investing.
This is 20 years ago andsomebody from a fun company
called Calvert gave a speech,gave a talk to all us suit and
(01:51):
tie Back when I used to wear asuit and tie and I was amazed
that, oh, I can actually be inthis business and make a
difference.
I was actually OSHA on the wayout of the business and I was
kind of like I don't know ifthis is for me, pushing
municipal bonds to people allday long and I really didn't see
a meaning behind it.
But then, amazingly enough, Ilearned about sustainable
(02:14):
investing, like I said, early2000s, and I was like, if I'm
going to be in this business,this seems like the way to do it
.
So here I am, 20 years later.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Like.
You've learned a few things inthat time.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, a lot.
I've seen so much change and Isound like I am in my 40s, still
that I sound like an old guy,but it's amazing how much growth
this industry has seen,especially over just kind of
like the last five years, Iwould say.
But it's definitely changedfrom 20 years ago for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
How would you respond to those people who say, yeah,
sure, I'd like to invest insustainable and socially
responsible companies, but Iwant to make money on my
investments.
They have this idea that thetwo are mutually exclusive.
What do you want them to know?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, you just jump right into the hard stuff, by
the way.
But yeah, that's sort of an old, old wise tale.
You can't make money being asustainable investor, and I
think what happened is 15 yearsago 20, sustainable investing
was really quite a bit differentthan it is today.
Back then it was like I justwant to invest in solar startups
(03:26):
or wind energy companies and Ithink what happened was some of
those entities or funds reallydidn't do so well.
Nowadays it's completelychanged.
This term ESG, which I'm surewe'll get into.
Nowadays, sustainable investingis really about finding the
companies that are addressingissues that help them in the
(03:47):
long run.
What is Dell computers doingwith water usage?
There's actually a financialbenefit to knowing what they're
doing when it comes tosustainability.
So I just kind of gave you twoends of the spectrum.
But yeah that I could givenumerous examples of how
sustainable investors they don'tsee any difference in
(04:08):
performance than traditional.
And, if anything, I could showthat there's an outperformance
starting to happen and it's beenhappening for five years
because of the fact thatcompanies with high
sustainability scores are sortof rising, the cream rises to
the top and their peers are likeoh, maybe we should be doing
that.
Maybe we should care about howmuch alternative energy we use
(04:32):
for our own corporate needs.
So it's pretty clear.
And there's funds like it.
Give you like DSI and not tostart throwing out stock symbols
.
But DSI is an old Dominic indexfund.
It's been around for a longtime.
I always say to people ifyou're not sure, go look at DSI
and compare that to the S&P 500and you'll see.
And that's sort of the babystep I never lead in with oh,
(04:56):
buy these solar companies orwind turbine companies.
It's more about just take alittle step away from
traditional investing and DSI.
What DSI does?
It actually gets rid of 100 ofthe worst companies in the S&P
500.
So you own 400 companies thatare actually doing a bit better
than the 500 by weeding out the100.
(05:17):
So it's very easy to understand.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So weeding out the bad players.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, and that's a big phrase there.
But yes, that's what the indexdoes and there's so much data
behind it now it's amazing.
And that's definitely one ofthe things you've sort of
mentioned is what have you seenchange?
And really the data that wedidn't have 10 years ago is now
available, like we know whatApple is doing when it comes to
(05:44):
how much aluminum they'rerecycling in their laptops.
I mean, you have it down to thenumber, so the data's out there
.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's great because that leads me into this idea of
greenwashing.
I'm sure all of you out therehave heard of the practice of
greenwashing, but you might notknow how to dig into the
companies that are actuallydoing the work and those that
are hiding their dirty laundrybehind a veneer of feel-good
advertising.
So, dale, can you give us someideas for how to screen out
(06:16):
those companies that are doinggreenwashing, or maybe some
examples of some companies thathave done a really big job of
greenwashing and people haveprobably seen some of the
advertisements?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, you're full of all the hard questions right up
the gecko.
So I think most people arelistening, probably, to
greenwashing.
It's sort of the go-to term forcompanies that are just
pretending they're doingsomething and making it look
like they are but in realitythey're not In the book and I
haven't looked at the booklately.
But I think I mentionedVolkswagen.
(06:47):
You know, volkswagen isactually a very sustainably
minded company but, believe me,their ESG score really dropped
quite a bit because they wentthrough this huge mess up with
emissions.
And if you had a Volkswagen,you kind of know what happened,
because they either paid you toget rid of the car or they just
gave you cash because they weresaying sorry, but we lied,
because we said that our carswere not as polluting as others.
(07:10):
But they actually weren't.
They actually had a digitaltechnique of showing that the
cars were spewing less energythan they actually were.
So that's one they cheated inline they cheated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah I was trying toget around there.
They did cheat and they'redigging themselves out of it
after billions of dollars.
And that's what's funny isthat's ESG?
That's sort of hey, the data'sthere.
(07:32):
Volkswagen's just bumped downfrom an A to a D.
Now investors are going to lookat that and say, maybe because
their ESG score is not as high,I'm not going to buy them.
If they were in an A, I wouldconsider buying them, but now
the 30.
And of course, there'sfinancial reasons to buy the
stock or not.
But yeah, and then to your point, which is, for maybe some of
(07:52):
your listeners, we're like well,what about investing?
Well, this is where you have tobe careful.
This is where, maybe, hiring anadvisor and I'm not pushing
myself, but sometimes or justask friends there's some funds
out there that say they're doingsustainable investing.
But if you dig into theholdings, it's a different story
and I'll give you a fewexamples.
For instance, my clients.
They don't buy a Goldman SachsESG fund.
(08:15):
Every big money manager outthere now has their own
sustainable fund, clearlybecause they want the assets to
stay with them or they don'twant young investors to leave.
The problem is Goldman Sachsitself as an entity maybe isn't
the most sustainable bank in theworld, whereas you could buy a
similar fund from a company likeParnassus, who has been doing
(08:38):
sustainable investing for 25, 30years, and there's no
outperformance from buyingGoldman versus Parnassus.
So you just have to be careful,because certain fund families
really believe in sustainableinvesting and activism, whereas
the vanguards and the GoldmanSachs is of the world.
Just because they have asustainable fund doesn't mean
(08:59):
and I'll be the first to saythat's actually a better step to
buy an ESG fund at Goldman, butyou're still doing business
with the devil.
So be careful when you start tolook at what funds should I buy
, and you could always askpeople like me what are three or
four fund families that youlike that are putting themselves
(09:19):
behind what they're doing, asopposed to just putting a fund
out there?
Vanguard has numeroussustainable funds.
Now I'm not poo-pooing Vanguard, but they've never come out and
say they believe in sustainableinvesting like some of the
other firms have.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Like you say, there are some corporations that do
have an ESG fund but at the sametime they do a lot of business
with fossil fuel industry andpolluters, so their hands are
pretty dirty.
So I guess it's really up tothe individual to think about.
What do I really want tosupport with my money?
(09:56):
Can I make a difference?
And if I do want to use myinvestments to shape a more
livable future, then what arethe most influential investments
that I can make?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's hard.
I mean, that's what theinvestment world is.
There's a lot going on.
Hopefully the book sort ofhelps guide people to go in the
right direction and give themsome examples.
But yeah, to your point.
I'm sure there's themes.
Now the exciting part and Idon't want to be negative here
the exciting part is there's somany different vehicles that are
specific, or what they'recalling thematic.
(10:29):
That's great.
That wasn't around 10 years ago.
You could say.
I really want alternative energyto be 5% of my million-dollar
portfolio.
I really believe in solar andwind and geothermal.
Hey Dale or anybody.
Is there a fund that I can justdirect that to?
And there is not.
Just it buys 50 of the largestsolar and wind companies and
(10:50):
there you go, you're nowallocated.
Or if water scarcity we allknow water is an important
element in the world and if youwant to invest in infrastructure
and companies that areaddressing farming and scarcity
of water, you can actuallydirect capital and those are
environmental.
There's social issues.
Now that you can, would yourather invest in women-run
(11:13):
businesses?
You can absolutely and I'm notsaying load up on your portfolio
in these themes, but this ishow I work with clients.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
A lot of us have money that's sitting in
investments or banks and wewould like to make sure that our
investments are in alignmentwith our values while meeting at
the same time, while meetingour financial goals.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, and it's going beyond.
Being free of fossil fuels isone thing, you know, divesting
the fossil fuel companies.
But I'm seeing people start totake interest in you know how
can I invest in my localcommunity?
You know what are some moreimpactful ways to invest?
Now I will say there.
Sometimes the returns aren't ashigh.
You know you can buy somethinglike a Calvert Foundation note.
(11:59):
You can do that through CharlesSchwab that's my custodian but
they may make three or 4% fixed.
But people are like, ooh, Ilike that.
It's good to know that my moneyis being invested towards
communities in need, but I dowant to see some kind of return.
I don't want to give everythingup.
It's not like a donation to anonprofit, which is very a great
(12:21):
thing to do.
Most of my clients are like ifI can get two or 3%?
So what I'm seeing is peoplestart to direct just a little
bit and I keep using a milliondollars as an example.
But hey, can we just direct 1%of my assets towards something
like that?
And you know it just takes time.
We're creatures of habit and soeven in the investment world
(12:42):
this is going to take time, eventhough sustainable investing
has been around for my Obi-WanKenobi, the guy who was one of
my mentors, john Harrington.
He's been doing it for probably40 years, so even though I've
been doing it for 20, it's just.
It's cool to see the evolution.
It just takes time.
One of my clients out ofBerkeley he's just like you're
(13:04):
doing a great job, dale, keep itup, but it's going to take a
whole, it's going to be agenerational shift.
Do we have enough time?
I don't know, but things taketime.
People want their money to grow, so it's baby steps.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
There've been so many really bad players on the scene
in terms of the bankingindustry, and everyone can think
of some examples of some of thebad players.
I mean what Volkswagen did whenthey cheated, or the whole
crisis at 2008 and the meltdownof the housing and mortgage
industry.
There are just so many thingslike that that have happened
(13:42):
that I think it's reallyimportant to look at what are we
investing in and where's ourmoney going.
Is this really legit?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And so one way is to be really invested in socially
responsible investing right yeahyou bring up 2008, which is,
you know, I went through it as amanager managing money, not at
sustained vest, it was theprevious firm I was with.
Wow, what a wild ride that was.
And if you ever look up, peopleremember Tarp.
(14:14):
But every once in a while I getlike in one of my bitter moods
and I'll Google Tarp.
You know Wikipedia, tarp, andyou'll see who the banks were
that really brought the wholething down.
And I still have a bitter tastein my mouth from those banks
and I don't want to again.
I'm not here to point fingers,but many of my clients most of
(14:36):
them, when I buy regional bankCDs they tell me don't stay away
from the big banks.
You know Viva and Citi and I'mall for it because they were one
of the you know, if not the oneof the big reasons that things
really went sour back then andnow, and you can Google anything
these days.
But Tarp is interesting.
And now, of course, whichcompanies are funding?
(14:58):
Who are lending the most to thefossil fuel industry?
Right, and again, I'm notsaying Exxon is horrible.
Right, you know Exxon andChevron.
They are horrible right now,but who's to say, you know,
maybe in 10 years they'll be themost sustainable energy
companies in the world, right?
So again, I'm not saying it'slike the classic McDonald's
(15:19):
versus Chipotle McDonald'sdoesn't score very highly with
overall ESG compared to Chipotleright now.
But I'm saying let's giveeverybody a chance.
It doesn't mean we're going toinvest in you right now, but
let's give you a chance.
And maybe in 10 yearsMcDonald's will be at my
client's portfolio, but rightnow it's not and I don't know
(15:39):
how that's going to turn out.
But right now you know Exxon andChevron are not doing much in
the way of alternatives.
You can look this up, everybodycan see it.
As far as a percentage of theiroverall revenue or how much
they're spending on renewables,they rank very poorly compared
to other peers in the energysector.
But in 10 years maybe that'llchange.
But right now we can see thedata and it's just not there.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So well, let's take a short break and we'll be back
in just a minute with more fromDale Wannon, and we're going to
get into some really good juicystuff in this next segment, so
stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with OSHA, art,
(16:27):
nature, humanity, and I'm yourhost, osha Hayden.
I'm here today with Dale Wannonof SustainVest in Petaluma, and
we are talking about money howyou can use your money to make
more money while doing good forthe planet at the same time.
So I wanted to talk a littlebit about the movement of people
(16:51):
who've drunk the Kool-Aid fromthe fossil fuel companies and
are right now fighting to keepthe coal industry fired up.
We're just reading a storyabout it the other day.
In some states, they're doingeverything they can to prop up
the coal industry because theythink that we just need to have
more carbon in the atmosphereand save the coal industry, and
(17:13):
so these people seem to berejecting anything that they
consider to be quote woke.
So, considering the way thingsare going to be going in the
future, are they missing out onsome of the best performing
investments, and how would youhelp them make more money by
investing sustainably?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
That's another big one.
You always come out with thewhammy.
So I think you hit a couple ofthings there.
One is this anti-movement andthe politicians are starting to
get involved, which is reallyinteresting.
I think you may be referring tothe recent news where it's one
of the politicians I want to sayfrom Kentucky, but definitely
one of the coal mining states,who's saying that investors
(17:59):
should not have ESG sustainableinvesting choices in their 401k
plans.
That was what he.
I don't know why he did thisand where he came from, but I
think I've kind of tweeted aboutthis.
I was like he doesn't know whathe's talking about.
I was like this jabroni, likethis clown doesn't even know
what he's talking about.
And I know this only fromexperience that I've managed a
few 401k plans.
(18:19):
When somebody works at a joband they say, okay, I'm going to
put some money away into thisplan that my employers asked me
to do, it's actually requiredthat they have not only
sustainable choices but alsonon-sustainable choices.
Right, and the ones that Imanage.
I'd say you're going to haveemployees who maybe don't want
to do the sustainable, morefossil fuel free things, so you
(18:42):
have to give them that choice.
So where this person thispolitician was coming from.
I don't even know.
I don't even want to waste time, because I really feel like he
just is being an advocatebecause his lobbying that's
occurring is pushing him to saystuff like that.
So I always mentioned in mytweets when I'm going to bed if
(19:03):
anybody ever wants to sit downand have coffee with me, these
politicians included, let's doit, because I don't think you
understand.
What we're doing is not likeI'm not out there hugging trees,
and I'm doing this because, Ibelieve, for my client's benefit
, you're just taking an extrastep to weed out companies that
just aren't addressing theseissues, and I mentioned a few of
(19:23):
them.
But it's pretty clear that if Idon't know if a data storage
company has their warehouses ortheir storage facilities next to
a flood prone area in Miami, Ihope that they're addressing
this issue and consideringmoving away from that area, and
that's an ESG consideration.
So yeah, I thought that waspart of your question, which I
(19:45):
can't remember.
If that answered it.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
But yeah, because the future, most of the companies,
a lot of the big carmanufacturers, et cetera.
They're shifting big timetowards electric or possibly
hydrogen, but the fossil fuelspewing cars are going to be a
thing of the past.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But so if they don't want to invest in anything
that's woke, aren't they goingto miss the bandwagon there and
be invested in things likefossil fuel companies that are
going to go down?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, I mean you're kind of answering the question,
but clearly Ford and GM, they'reall getting involved in EVs.
I mean, ford is pretty amazing.
I'm still waiting for thatstock to do something.
It's sort of quite a few of myclients own it because the Ford
F-150 is the number one sellingvehicle over the last 25 years
every year the pickup truck, andnow they're committed to go
(20:39):
100% EV in their Ford F-150 asof next year and so if we're
sort of waiting to see how thatplays out for them.
But absolutely and you mentionedcoal mining I remember I was
doing something called shortingcoal mining.
This was like seven or eightyears ago and I won't get into
options trading or anything likethat.
But companies and they stillare folding like Peabody.
(21:03):
These are coal manufacturingcompanies that are publicly
traded and shorting is a way tomake money.
I had a few clients who werelike if we really don't believe
in what they're doing, not onlydo we not own them, let's short
them, because we feel like thestock price is going to go down
in value.
I'm not recommending optionstrading to any clients, but it
was kind of a fun time becauseyou watched your investment
(21:24):
shoot up in value in PeabodyEnergy as they were going out of
business and so and if you canGoogle and I do have this in the
book where I talk aboutelectric vehicles and the shift
and the metaverse and there's somany cool things happening
right now that they all have aplay in sustainability, whether
it's EVs, robots the robots arecoming and maybe they'll help us
(21:48):
be more sustainable with ourlives, or maybe they'll just get
rid of all of us, who knows?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
They might say well, you guys are illogical.
You're polluting the planetthat you depend on in order to
live.
So what do we need you for?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Maybe they'll come up with a better answer than Elon
Musk has or whoever else has sofar, so let's not count about
you.
They might have the answer.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
They might, they might.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And definitely solar and wind companies.
I won't get into it, but youcan see the difference in
performance of companies likeFirst Solar or Enphase.
These are companies that haveto do with solar panels and
installation and et cetera, etcetera.
And you can put them up againstExxon or Chevron.
Anybody can.
You'll see the difference.
(22:36):
Now, two different industries.
One's been around for 100 years, one's been around for 20.
Solar is still trying to findits way and prices have come
down so much you're going to getme in my stock valuation
problem.
Right now.
It's really difficult todecipher what's happening with
solar because prices have comedown.
You put years ago it cost$50,000 to put solar panels in
(22:57):
move and now it's 15.
Well, the market doesn't reallylike to see that because they
want to see companies makingmoney and not making less.
So that's still working its wayout.
And then you have Exxon andChevron that they've had a good
run, especially when we go towar with a huge country, a
communist country, that controlsmost of the oil and that's why
(23:17):
the price of oil went up above$100.
But remember, exxon and Chevronare 100% reliant on the price
of one thing and any goodinvestor knows it's one thing
that they're reliant on, andthat's oil, and that's not a
very diversified company to beinvested in.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right, and do you want to be perpetuating that?
You know that's the otherquestion.
I mean, I love the idea that Ican use my money to help create
positive change in the world andmake money at the same time, so
that's kind of a real win-win.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It is yeah, and you know it's great when you get the
emails that are three or fourmonths later that say you know
what?
I'm looking at my quarterlyreport and I feel like there's a
weight that's been lifted offmy shoulders.
And I'm not just saying that tobe cheesy, it's just that's.
You don't get those very often,but it is nice to hear that
because of taking them away fromthe, you know the vanguards and
(24:17):
then they see the newsletter,like okay, this makes me feel
better.
I'm still invested, I got tosave money, I want to take
vacations every year, but it'sgood to know that they've
shifted away.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's talk about something you've done, a lot of
which is shareholder advocacy.
So can you talk about why it'simportant and how any investor
can, as you say, take on the manthrough simple actions?
And so how can someone who'snot a millionaire, who doesn't
have all that power, how canthey actually have an impact
(24:50):
with these companies?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, shareholder activism.
I'm surprised it doesn't getmore press and because I find it
really interesting and peopledon't realize the power we have
so well.
I have to give a shout out toagain John Harrington, who's
like my.
I keep saying my Obi-Wan Kenobi.
But there are certain people inthis industry that have been
doing it for a long time and Ialways say, any industry you're
in, it's good to have a mentor.
(25:13):
They may not know they're amentor, but somebody to kind of
watch what they're doing,because they're really helpful
and they can inspire others.
But so, yeah, so shareholderactivism is a way to sort of,
instead of just owning thecompany, you can do something
else.
You can own the company, butthen you can also sort of poke
them a little bit if you seesomething that they're doing
(25:33):
that you may not agree with.
Now I always say remember,these are publicly traded
companies and you can't do thiswith a private company like
sustain vest.
I'm a private health company.
You know these are publiccompanies.
Remember, like when MarkZuckerberg decided to go public
with his already huge company,he did it because he wanted to
grow.
(25:53):
He did it because he wanted tomake more money.
Once he decided to go public.
He's now just as public as thepublic library, right?
And people sometimes forget.
Oh, elon Musk.
He might be the richest guy inthe world, but guess what?
We own him like I don't know,not as a person, but he
relinquished his ownership ofhis company.
Now he has a big chunk of hiscompany still, but because now
(26:14):
the public owns it, we have aright to say something.
So shareholder activism is thatwhere you have the ability to
write something to the company,it has to be 500 words or less,
and of course I have a chapterabout this in the book.
I hope I don't make it veryboring.
I talk about being hungoverwith my dog, like licking my
toes, and me filing one of theseproposals.
(26:35):
You don't have to berocket-sized to do it.
You do have to know the ins andouts a little bit, but and you
can just say hey, company, in500 words or less, I would
really like it if you did suchand such a little bit better.
Right, and there's reasonsbehind this.
Because I'm a stock owner.
I feel like if you don'taddress this, it's going to
negatively affect the value ofmy stock that I own in you.
(26:57):
So there's a way to do it andyou only need a few thousand
dollars.
It used to be you just had tohold two thousand dollars and
that was it of the stock and hadto hold it for one year.
The SEC and the powers that beupped it to I think it's 30,000
for one year.
Or you can just own threethousand dollars of the stock
for three years.
(27:18):
In other words you have to holdit for three years before you
can commit.
But three grand in this day andage with inflation and
everything, it seems like a fairamount to have some beat the
file.
And I help clients do some ofthese because they get like oh,
I can't believe Starbucksdoesn't have the good milk
they're using non-organic andthey're like let's file a
(27:39):
resolution against that.
So it's exciting when you seeclients are like do I own that
stock?
I'm like you do.
You have 40,000 dollars inStarbucks or whatever it is, and
then you can kind of get thewheel spinning on file.
So it's fun.
The client, the companies don'tlike them.
You know the attorneys get theproposal from you and you have
to send it a certain way thatit's signed for and everything.
(28:01):
And it's great to get thoseemails from the attorneys.
Attorneys are great, we allneed them.
But the corporate attorneys at,like these big public companies
, they're like wait, what isthis?
Because some of these companiesmaybe have never seen one
before, and so it's just aninteresting way to kind of say
hey, you're public, I have aright to this.
It's not me against you.
It's literally me saying, hey,I can help you, if you just
(28:25):
listen, I'm a public.
And then the SEC has the finalsay and, as you can tell, I'll
keep talking about this.
It's not like the company or Ihave the final say on whether
this gets on the proxy.
The SEC decides like, oh, thisperson has a valid point.
Or they'll say this person'scrazy, this stockholder.
They cut it off at that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So I mean, if you do get the approval and it goes on
as a proxy vote, then everyone,all of the shareholders, can
vote on it and say yes or no.
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I guess that's another reason to read your
shareholder.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, maybe not every one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
But yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, as an advisor, you know I vote on behalf of my
clients and if you do havesomebody that helps you, let ask
them.
You know when a client comes on, there's a yes or no and I open
the client's like you do it,because I can vote in favor of
shareholder proposals and I havea system that I pay for to do
it to make it easier for me, asopposed to a client having to
(29:30):
get 50 of these things everyyear, or 20 or whatever it is,
and have to check the boxes.
But definitely anybody can seethe proxy statement.
They're online because it's apublic traded company and
they're pretty juicy.
You know they're black andwhite and they're 50 pages.
They don't make them veryinteresting, but you can dive in
.
It's really interesting.
Not only are the shareholderproposals on there, but also
(29:51):
like compensation I go.
I didn't know that the boardmembers were getting paid
$60,000 each quarter to go to aboard meeting.
So it's there's juicy stuffinside of those things that you
just look and yeah, yeah, thatgives you a lot more information
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Actually, let's go to a short break and then we're
going to talk about future stuff, so we'll be back in just a
moment with more of Dale Wanin,and his book is Don't Feed the
Clowns Sustainable Investing inEveryday Life.
Stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with OSHA Art,
(30:39):
nature, humanity, and I'm yourhost, osha Hayden.
I am here with Dale Wanin ofSustainVest, an investment firm
in Petaluma, and we are talkingabout sustainable investing and
also about his new book, whichis quite a good read.
(31:00):
Actually, you might think that,reading a book about investing
sustainable or not you mightthink you know yawn.
But it's actually a pretty goodbook and it's funny and it's
fun and it's interesting and youlearn a lot, and it's called
Don't Feed the ClownsSustainable Investing for
(31:23):
Everyday Life.
Before we talk about futurestuff, I just want to ask you a
quick question about the clowns.
Who are the clowns and whydon't we want to feed them?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What a horrible title for a book.
But I keep getting asked aboutthe title.
You know, actually I never evenhad a title throughout the book
process and writing.
If anybody ever wants to emailme who wants to write a book
themselves, please do, because Ilove talking about it because I
learned so much aboutpublishing and all this stuff.
What happened was my book coach.
You know she would help me.
Every two weeks we'd have adiscussion.
(31:58):
It was great.
Get a book coach if you can, aslong as they're not too pricey
and you like them and you getalong.
We were trying to come up with atitle and I kept a document
that said titles and I think Ihad 14 or 15 of them listed for
the book and this one's not funenough, but I want to say it was
the book coach, if I remember,that came up with something.
She said you keep talking aboutclowns and the buffoonery in
(32:20):
the investment world, and thatgoes to my experience.
When I was a young one, in my20s, I kind of started going
through the insurance companiesand banks and broker houses and
did the whole thing.
So that's where it came from.
I have seen and I've been inthe carnival, as I referred to
the book quite a bit and I justkept calling them clowns, which
(32:41):
I know that's a horrible word touse, but it's my way of saying
just be careful.
I've seen things.
I still see it to this day.
I have clients who bring mestatements and they're like I
don't know what this personcharged me for what, and it was
for a trade.
And it cost $800 to do a trade.
And I was just like what isthis?
And this wasn't 10 years ago,this is two years ago and so
(33:03):
there's still this stuffhappening.
That's where it comes from.
A lot of references to clownsand I know I'm in this industry,
but I'm really trying to letpeople know.
This is how maybe you want togo, if you want to hire somebody
to do it, or if you walk into abank.
Here's some issues to take noteof and be careful of.
Don't be swayed by the fancychocolates and stuff, because
(33:28):
stay away from certain games andthe carnival.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
That's where the clowns came from and it's not
because you dislikeentertainment-type clowns, right
.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
No, I love clowns by the way I've had a couple of
people say to me I'm not goingto buy your book because I'm
scared of clowns.
No, I love clowns.
I find them pretty hilarious.
I'm not scared of them at all.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
So we're talking about a different type of clown,
not the clowns that entertainand that are fun and that are
funny.
Make you laugh.
You're talking about the clowns, who are big-time jokers,
taking your money and tellingyou something else.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
That's right, and there's so many parts of that,
whether it's what type of fun toinvest in, like class shares,
whether it's insurance andannuities I'm using that term
very vaguely You're talking tosomebody who grew up East Coast,
atlantic City, the boardwalk,and that picture of the clown
that I have on the cover is.
The publisher came up withthree different pictures of
(34:27):
clowns and I said, oh, it's thatone, because I remember on the
boardwalk in Atlantic Citythat's what the clowns sort of
reminded me of.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So let's talk about the future.
Let's talk about where we'reheaded right now and some things
that investors might want to belooking at and thinking about
as we move forward.
You have a whole chapter juston the future.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I think that gets a little weird.
Not weird, but maybe I had afew drinks before I started
writing this chapter.
But no, and I think you'rereferencing the one chapter.
It's called Asta La Vista Baby,which that's just the
Terminator, which is a moviefrom the 80s, which that's when
I was in the heart of my teenageyears.
But the Terminator was one ofthe original AI robots that I
(35:13):
knew of because he was beingprogrammed and constantly
upgraded.
I don't want to get into my realrobotic stuff, but things have
changed so much because what'shappening is everything's
wireless now.
Remember when we had littlefurbies that were like these
cool robots as kids and theytalked.
They only had one programinside of them and that was it.
It could have never beenupdated, it wasn't learning, it
(35:35):
was just there Now to say Ithink, just so people know
that's what's amazing is you canhave a robot now and it's
constantly going to be learning.
And not only is it learning,it's learning so much quicker
that we are.
That that's what's scared.
But the books purposes back toinvesting Sometimes in the book.
I got a little silly and Iwould go off on these funny
little stories about.
(35:56):
Japan has one of the lowestbirthing rates in the world.
It ranks like third from last.
I didn't know this, but Japan'spopulation is about to go from
like 120 million to like 80million, and that's because they
really are into robots, even aspartners, and it's funny.
(36:17):
You'll have to read the bookabout that.
But now what's happening withinvesting is there's things
called robo advisors, and theycame to the scene very quickly
with big companies likeBetterment and Wealthfront, and
I think Robin Hood might bemoved into that.
But I even have one now.
It's called Sustainfolio and Istill have my core business,
(36:37):
which is hey, meet for a cup ofcoffee.
Human flesh is speaking to eachother and that's really the
core of what I do still.
But I definitely see that inthe next five, 10, 15 years, the
young whippersnappers, whichare people like in their 20 and
30s I make myself sound so old,but they may not need as much
handholding as my parents did oreven me.
(36:59):
They're so prone to just go ontheir phones.
So investing is now sort ofsliding into this.
Oh, you can be helped with ahuman, but I'd rather just go
online and have the investingdone for me through this thing
called a robo advisor, and Ionly bring it up because I just
wanted to let people know againfor the betterment of the reader
.
Hey, just be on the lookout forthese.
(37:21):
And I do talk about how some ofthese robo advisors are being
pushed by the evil banks of theworld and they're saying that
they're doing sustainableinvesting.
But you're not going to helpanybody because you're just
putting your money back withthat same entity who's lending
it to fossil fuels.
So I hope young investors seethat.
And so Sistine Folia was my wayof saying hey, it's me here, I
(37:44):
charge the same as the big guys,and at least you know that it's
not being swayed towardsGoldman Sachs or whatever like
that.
So that's what the chapter issort of about is the robotic
world is coming, and now AI,which that wasn't even on the
scene chat, bt and all thatstuff that wasn't on the scene
when I wrote the book.
And now there'll be anotherbook about investing with AI and
(38:08):
these chip companies likeNVIDIA and AMD.
It's a wild world.
Right now we don't know whereit's going to go.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Right, but if you're continually thinking about and
looking at what's down the roadin terms of the future, it can
begin to shape how you invest inthings.
And the second thing is thatyou can begin to influence which
things are doing better byputting your money in them.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Absolutely Like things like the metaverse, which
I already mentioned, and evencryptocurrency, which, again,
I'm not advocating to invest inthat, but it seems to be
sticking.
You know, bitcoin and thingslike that and I do mention this
in the book like meta at crypto.
First of all, the easy one iscrypto.
Some cryptocurrency takes a lotof energy usage to develop
these coins to mine for thecoins.
(38:59):
And there are certain coinsagain not advocating to invest
in them that are usingalternative energy to create the
coins, so that's kind of nice.
And there's two or three that Imentioned that if you're like,
oh, if that really is importantto you to be in crypto, you may
want to look at those firms thatare using alternative energy.
And then the metaverse.
This could be a topic thatnumerous martinis could go down
(39:22):
over this, which is people saythe metaverse and this apple
just came out with their versionof the metaverse, with these
goggles that they're coming out,which are supposedly really
amazing.
You know we are people, we arehumans, we need to interact, but
there's a chance that themetaverse could actually help
with sustainability and I don'twant to get weird here, but you
(39:42):
know there's a chance.
Just like zoom, like we'redoing right now.
It could be limiting the amountof pollution we're putting out
right, and the metaverse couldbe a way to do things that don't
produce as much pollution.
I think I'm trying to think ofthe example in the book which is
, instead of going out buyingthose $300 pair of pants that
(40:05):
were made in the middle of somethird world country, the young
kids maybe don't want to buy thepants now, but they will buy
them for $5 in the metaverse andI know this is wild.
And guess what happens?
They don't even have thephysical pants, although they
can show their friends in themetaverse that they're wearing
$5 cool pants.
But they might have just saveda lot of waste and pollution
(40:29):
because of the fact that they'renot buying the physical thing
Now.
Our kids still going to bewearing pants, of course, but my
mind is still spinning, andthat's why I mentioned the
martinis, because it takes a lotto think about and nobody knows
the answer to this right now,which is there is this
interesting future coming andyou can invest in certain
companies that I know for surethat are going to be benefiting
from this.
So, weird times, a weird time.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Instead of flying across multiple oceans to go on
a vacation, you could step inthat metaverse and basically be
walking down the street and andinteracting with the monkeys in
the monkey forest.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, I mean, we all now, we all want to go to the
beach and put our feet in thesand and feel the sun.
But you definitely bring up anexample of maybe.
There's places that we could gotogether, like me and you, osha
, if we want to go to I don'tknow, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art right together and actuallyput our goggles on and say, hey
(41:27):
, how about this Sunday, let'sgo, take an hour and go and we
go there.
It may cost us money becausethe Metropolitan is going to now
be charging us to go there, butit's the same experience,
except you're not there.
It's going to be a weirddynamic because some places you
still want to go, like you gotto see the Eiffel Tower, maybe
in person.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Well, that's just because you need to have the,
the cafe creme and that baguettewith the cheese and that's
right, you know certain thingsyou have to do in Paris right.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, that's right, new Orleans, like you can't you
know you got to have a baguettein New Orleans.
You can't just do it over overthe Metaverse.
But it's going to beinteresting to see how this
helps with really carbonemissions and things like that.
But we're just in the earlystage.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It could also help tremendously in respect to
parking spots, you know thatjust occurred to me.
I was thinking OK, so very funyou got to park at the
Metropolitan Museum or at theOpera or whatever, and you go in
the Metaverse and you have topark.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's right.
Oh, parking is.
You know, I'm an East Coastoriginally, it's, it's the worst
.
And I'm not a hunker.
I don't hunk my horn anymore.
California has changed me.
I no longer hunk my horn.
But, yeah, and like you say,like a museum could be one thing
, but I definitely want to letpeople know that also, we're
going to physically still wantto go places and feel things,
(42:50):
but maybe a museum, if it'sthree dimensional and Mona
Lisa's right there and I feellike I'm there, that's pretty
good.
And I'm not.
Everybody should go to a goodmuseum once in a while, but I do
hope the museum folk aregetting ready.
They're, you know theirbusiness development.
Folk are just like hmm, maybewe should be paying attention to
this and make money doing.
(43:11):
They could triple their, theycould quadruple their emissions,
still charging, maybe you know.
So there's what a wild world.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
They were doing a lot actually during COVID.
You know you could go to theart museum.
I mean not go there, but youcould see the art, you know they
were making the art availableso you could go visit the art
you know on your screen.
Nothing is ever going to takethe place of walking among the
trees and hearing the birds songand being at the beach and
(43:41):
watching the waves and theseagulls and feeling the sand
beneath your feet, of course,but it is interesting.
And looking at the future andhow things are going to be going
.
You know we also want to beinvesting in or at least I do
investing in making sure that wedo have a future for our next
(44:01):
generations, that they have aplace to live, that there is
enough water, that there is airthat's breathable, that they
don't have to escape every yearfrom the wildfires.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, that's where sustainable investing comes in
and you know we're all trying.
There's so many new amazingthings Like I think of I don't
know why I thought of this likegreen bonds, and now there's a
thing called blue bonds.
We're focused on the stockmarket a lot, with my clients
and you know buying funds thatare getting rid of things that
are leading to climate changeand everything.
But don't forget about the bondmarket, which a lot of retirees
(44:36):
.
They have half their portfolioin something called a bond and I
won't go into the thing, butusually when you invest in a
bond, you don't know what it'sfor.
If Starbucks issues a bond, youdon't know what it's being used
for.
But now these have grown somuch in popularity In fact, they
get bought up so quickly thatthey're hard to buy.
A green bond is where Starbuckscomes out.
It has to get a third partystamp, but the proceeds of them
(44:59):
issuing the bond say it's $100million.
They say this 100% of this isgoing towards solar panels on
all of our offices or 100% of itis going to compostable cups.
So they're issuing the bondbecause they need to raise money
and then the investors gobblethem up because people are like,
oh, if I'm going to buy a bond,I'm going to do that, and then
(45:20):
that's a green bond.
So maybe your listeners canGoogle that.
When we hang up, they go thisguy was talking about that.
And now I'm hearing and I'vebeen hearing this for years and
they haven't taken off yet.
But blue bonds for water haveto do with the oceans, health
and things like that.
It's really cool that theinvesting world is trying to do
(45:40):
its thing.
I mean, there's definitely theevil clowns that are still out
there, but how cool is it.
And it all comes from yourlisteners and you, osh, it's not
me, I'm just a messenger.
The change is going to happenwhen the investors know about
these things, and I might have aclient that's a surfer in Santa
Barbara and they may come to meand say what's this blue bond
(46:01):
thing, dale, can we put 50 grandinto these blue bonds?
Well, my job is I haven't seenthem yet, they haven't been
issued, like on Charles Schwab'splatform, but it's the more of
the investors are asking forthat stuff.
You know, I mean that's why ESGhas grown exponentially, not
because of me, it's because ofthe investors who are saying,
hey, dale, find this for me, andthen I have to.
(46:23):
So it's happening, let's justhope we're not.
We're not too late.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Right, we do what we can.
We're as much as we can andletting that money not sit
passively while it's hopefullygrowing, but actually have it
doing something good.
That's a huge thing, and it'swhen you have somebody who is
committed to sustainableinvestment that you're working
(46:49):
with.
That just makes it a lot easier, because they've done the
homework for you.
But we can also do the homeworkourselves.
That's the other way to go.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
And I know that not everybody does.
I know a lot of women give uptheir sort of sovereignty over
their investments because it'scomplicated.
I did for a long time andfinally I just.
I said wait a minute, you knowwait a minute I'm going to
empower myself around how mymoney is being used and what I'm
(47:21):
doing with it.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, good for you.
Most of my clients are women,by the way, which is interesting
, but they're generally the onesthat sort of initiate, you know
, because they believe.
You know they have strongerbeliefs, maybe, than us guys do,
and you know.
But and it's not young clientsI mean, I definitely have my
head full of young tech workers,but a lot of retired people
(47:45):
who've done well and saved moneyand now they're like okay, I'm
doing fine, I can pay my billsand enjoy my life and my
retirement, but something sortof scratching at them with
sustain.
You know they're trying to, andmaybe they've read something,
but yeah, and to your point,definitely, my job is so much
easier.
It's not, it's not an easy job,but people come to me already
(48:07):
convinced that sustainableinvesting is what they want to
do, which is great, becausethat's what I do.
And so, as a person, you haveto believe in it first.
You know I'm not here toconvince people.
You first have to be like okay,it's time for me to get rid of
these evil Doers in my portfoliobecause it's keeping people up
at night and that there's noreason for that.
(48:27):
You should be enjoying otherthings and not worrying about a
gun manufacturer, an assaultrifle manufacturer sitting in
your IRA.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, baby steps, baby steps.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And one step would be to get this book.
Where can they get it?
Do they just go online, or canthey get it at the local
bookstore?
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, it is at the local Copperfields in Sebastopol
and Santa Rosa and Penaluma, soit's there.
Other than that, it's Amazon.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
So again, the book is called Don't Feed the Clowns
Sustainable Investing forEveryday Life by Dale Wanin, and
you will learn a lot in thebook.
I was surprised by how muchinformation is in the book, Dale
.
I mean, you know and you haveappendices in the back that go
through all kinds of informationand give you like, okay, if
(49:19):
you're interested in this, gohere, If you're interested in
that, go there.
So you give a lot of reallygood information.
That's like immediately usableinformation.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I love it.
It sounds like you read it,Oshia.
That makes me feel so happy.
Yeah, Like I outlined everydecade of your life.
Don't, don't pay attention, butI help people like okay what do
I?
Do in my 20s?
What do I do in my 70s?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yeah, Well, as I read the book, I thought, oh so he's
going to make investing sexy.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, that's right.
I try, We'll see.
One of the chapters is titled.
You know, investing is justlike sex, so I don't know.
I was definitely trying tocatch eyes.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Right.
Well, I think that'll grabpeople's attention and keep them
engaged, because if they'relaughing while they're reading,
then that sort of changes thedynamic that they might have
about.
Oh, investing is difficult,like you know, but if you're
laughing while you're readingand learning about it, it shifts
your attitude towards investing, I think opens it up.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, that's, exactly it so thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
And now you have, your website is sustainvestcom.
So sustain like sustainable,sustain vest VST.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
So you can go there and learn more about Dale Wannon
and get some information there.
You can read his book and itjust has been a pleasure talking
with you today.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Thanks, Ocean.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I hope all of you listening have really enjoyed
this and find it inspiring andstimulating.
Thank you all for listeningtoday.
As you go about your week, havean inspired week and live your
joy.
See you next time.
When it comes to your investments, would you like to
align your money with yourvalues and put your money into
companies that are actuallymaking a difference?
Today, my guest, dale Wanin,will show you how you can use
your money to influence positivechange and helps steer our
world toward a more sustainablefuture.
(00:28):
And if you're thinking rightnow, oh no, this is going to be
boring, think again.
Dale Wanin can make investingseem sexy.
Dale Wanin is the founder ofSustainVest Asset Management LLC
, an independent registeredinvestment advisory firm focused
(00:49):
on sustainable investing.
He has over 20 years ofexperience in wealth management
with a commitment tosustainability.
In his new book Don't Feed theClowns Sustainable Investing for
Everyday Life, dale Wanin givesyou an insider's view of the
world of sustainable investing.
(01:10):
Welcome to the show, dale.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thanks very much for having me.
Wow, what an introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
So you've been involved with wealth management
for decades.
What prompted you to focusexclusively on the world of
sustainable investing?
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Wow, let's sit back and grab a drink and really get
into it here.
That's a long time ago andactually one key moment happened
when I wasn't an advisor and Iwasn't doing sustainable
investing.
This is 20 years ago andsomebody from a fun company
called Calvert gave a speech,gave a talk to all us suit and
(01:51):
tie Back when I used to wear asuit and tie and I was amazed
that, oh, I can actually be inthis business and make a
difference.
I was actually OSHA on the wayout of the business and I was
kind of like I don't know ifthis is for me, pushing
municipal bonds to people allday long and I really didn't see
a meaning behind it.
But then, amazingly enough, Ilearned about sustainable
(02:14):
investing, like I said, early2000s, and I was like, if I'm
going to be in this business,this seems like the way to do it
.
So here I am, 20 years later.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
Like.
You've learned a few things inthat time.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
Yeah, a lot.
I've seen so much change and Isound like I am in my 40s, still
that I sound like an old guy,but it's amazing how much growth
this industry has seen,especially over just kind of
like the last five years, Iwould say.
But it's definitely changedfrom 20 years ago for sure.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
How would you respond to those people who say, yeah,
sure, I'd like to invest insustainable and socially
responsible companies, but Iwant to make money on my
investments.
They have this idea that thetwo are mutually exclusive.
What do you want them to know?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, you just jump right into the hard stuff, by
the way.
But yeah, that's sort of an old, old wise tale.
You can't make money being asustainable investor, and I
think what happened is 15 yearsago 20, sustainable investing
was really quite a bit differentthan it is today.
Back then it was like I justwant to invest in solar startups
(03:26):
or wind energy companies and Ithink what happened was some of
those entities or funds reallydidn't do so well.
Nowadays it's completelychanged.
This term ESG, which I'm surewe'll get into.
Nowadays, sustainable investingis really about finding the
companies that are addressingissues that help them in the
(03:47):
long run.
What is Dell computers doingwith water usage?
There's actually a financialbenefit to knowing what they're
doing when it comes tosustainability.
So I just kind of gave you twoends of the spectrum.
But yeah that I could givenumerous examples of how
sustainable investors they don'tsee any difference in
(04:08):
performance than traditional.
And, if anything, I could showthat there's an outperformance
starting to happen and it's beenhappening for five years
because of the fact thatcompanies with high
sustainability scores are sortof rising, the cream rises to
the top and their peers are likeoh, maybe we should be doing
that.
Maybe we should care about howmuch alternative energy we use
(04:32):
for our own corporate needs.
So it's pretty clear.
And there's funds like it.
Give you like DSI and not tostart throwing out stock symbols
.
But DSI is an old Dominic indexfund.
It's been around for a longtime.
I always say to people ifyou're not sure, go look at DSI
and compare that to the S&P 500and you'll see.
And that's sort of the babystep I never lead in with oh,
(04:56):
buy these solar companies orwind turbine companies.
It's more about just take alittle step away from
traditional investing and DSI.
What DSI does?
It actually gets rid of 100 ofthe worst companies in the S&P
500.
So you own 400 companies thatare actually doing a bit better
than the 500 by weeding out the100.
(05:17):
So it's very easy to understand.
Speaker 1 (05:21):
So weeding out the bad players.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
Yeah, and that's a big phrase there.
But yes, that's what the indexdoes and there's so much data
behind it now it's amazing.
And that's definitely one ofthe things you've sort of
mentioned is what have you seenchange?
And really the data that wedidn't have 10 years ago is now
available, like we know whatApple is doing when it comes to
(05:44):
how much aluminum they'rerecycling in their laptops.
I mean, you have it down to thenumber, so the data's out there
.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
It's great because that leads me into this idea of
greenwashing.
I'm sure all of you out therehave heard of the practice of
greenwashing, but you might notknow how to dig into the
companies that are actuallydoing the work and those that
are hiding their dirty laundrybehind a veneer of feel-good
advertising.
So, dale, can you give us someideas for how to screen out
(06:16):
those companies that are doinggreenwashing, or maybe some
examples of some companies thathave done a really big job of
greenwashing and people haveprobably seen some of the
advertisements?
Speaker 2 (06:26):
Yeah, you're full of all the hard questions right up
the gecko.
So I think most people arelistening, probably, to
greenwashing.
It's sort of the go-to term forcompanies that are just
pretending they're doingsomething and making it look
like they are but in realitythey're not In the book and I
haven't looked at the booklately.
But I think I mentionedVolkswagen.
(06:47):
You know, volkswagen isactually a very sustainably
minded company but, believe me,their ESG score really dropped
quite a bit because they wentthrough this huge mess up with
emissions.
And if you had a Volkswagen,you kind of know what happened,
because they either paid you toget rid of the car or they just
gave you cash because they weresaying sorry, but we lied,
because we said that our carswere not as polluting as others.
(07:10):
But they actually weren't.
They actually had a digitaltechnique of showing that the
cars were spewing less energythan they actually were.
So that's one they cheated inline they cheated.
Yeah, yeah, yeah I was trying toget around there.
They did cheat and they'redigging themselves out of it
after billions of dollars.
And that's what's funny isthat's ESG?
That's sort of hey, the data'sthere.
(07:32):
Volkswagen's just bumped downfrom an A to a D.
Now investors are going to lookat that and say, maybe because
their ESG score is not as high,I'm not going to buy them.
If they were in an A, I wouldconsider buying them, but now
the 30.
And of course, there'sfinancial reasons to buy the
stock or not.
But yeah, and then to your point, which is, for maybe some of
(07:52):
your listeners, we're like well,what about investing?
Well, this is where you have tobe careful.
This is where, maybe, hiring anadvisor and I'm not pushing
myself, but sometimes or justask friends there's some funds
out there that say they're doingsustainable investing.
But if you dig into theholdings, it's a different story
and I'll give you a fewexamples.
For instance, my clients.
They don't buy a Goldman SachsESG fund.
(08:15):
Every big money manager outthere now has their own
sustainable fund, clearlybecause they want the assets to
stay with them or they don'twant young investors to leave.
The problem is Goldman Sachsitself as an entity maybe isn't
the most sustainable bank in theworld, whereas you could buy a
similar fund from a company likeParnassus, who has been doing
(08:38):
sustainable investing for 25, 30years, and there's no
outperformance from buyingGoldman versus Parnassus.
So you just have to be careful,because certain fund families
really believe in sustainableinvesting and activism, whereas
the vanguards and the GoldmanSachs is of the world.
Just because they have asustainable fund doesn't mean
(08:59):
and I'll be the first to saythat's actually a better step to
buy an ESG fund at Goldman, butyou're still doing business
with the devil.
So be careful when you start tolook at what funds should I buy
, and you could always askpeople like me what are three or
four fund families that youlike that are putting themselves
(09:19):
behind what they're doing, asopposed to just putting a fund
out there?
Vanguard has numeroussustainable funds.
Now I'm not poo-pooing Vanguard, but they've never come out and
say they believe in sustainableinvesting like some of the
other firms have.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
Like you say, there are some corporations that do
have an ESG fund but at the sametime they do a lot of business
with fossil fuel industry andpolluters, so their hands are
pretty dirty.
So I guess it's really up tothe individual to think about.
What do I really want tosupport with my money?
(09:56):
Can I make a difference?
And if I do want to use myinvestments to shape a more
livable future, then what arethe most influential investments
that I can make?
Speaker 2 (10:09):
It's hard.
I mean, that's what theinvestment world is.
There's a lot going on.
Hopefully the book sort ofhelps guide people to go in the
right direction and give themsome examples.
But yeah, to your point.
I'm sure there's themes.
Now the exciting part and Idon't want to be negative here
the exciting part is there's somany different vehicles that are
specific, or what they'recalling thematic.
(10:29):
That's great.
That wasn't around 10 years ago.
You could say.
I really want alternative energyto be 5% of my million-dollar
portfolio.
I really believe in solar andwind and geothermal.
Hey Dale or anybody.
Is there a fund that I can justdirect that to?
And there is not.
Just it buys 50 of the largestsolar and wind companies and
(10:50):
there you go, you're nowallocated.
Or if water scarcity we allknow water is an important
element in the world and if youwant to invest in infrastructure
and companies that areaddressing farming and scarcity
of water, you can actuallydirect capital and those are
environmental.
There's social issues.
Now that you can, would yourather invest in women-run
(11:13):
businesses?
You can absolutely and I'm notsaying load up on your portfolio
in these themes, but this ishow I work with clients.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
A lot of us have money that's sitting in
investments or banks and wewould like to make sure that our
investments are in alignmentwith our values while meeting at
the same time, while meetingour financial goals.
Speaker 2 (11:37):
Yeah, and it's going beyond.
Being free of fossil fuels isone thing, you know, divesting
the fossil fuel companies.
But I'm seeing people start totake interest in you know how
can I invest in my localcommunity?
You know what are some moreimpactful ways to invest?
Now I will say there.
Sometimes the returns aren't ashigh.
You know you can buy somethinglike a Calvert Foundation note.
(11:59):
You can do that through CharlesSchwab that's my custodian but
they may make three or 4% fixed.
But people are like, ooh, Ilike that.
It's good to know that my moneyis being invested towards
communities in need, but I dowant to see some kind of return.
I don't want to give everythingup.
It's not like a donation to anonprofit, which is very a great
(12:21):
thing to do.
Most of my clients are like ifI can get two or 3%?
So what I'm seeing is peoplestart to direct just a little
bit and I keep using a milliondollars as an example.
But hey, can we just direct 1%of my assets towards something
like that?
And you know it just takes time.
We're creatures of habit and soeven in the investment world
(12:42):
this is going to take time, eventhough sustainable investing
has been around for my Obi-WanKenobi, the guy who was one of
my mentors, john Harrington.
He's been doing it for probably40 years, so even though I've
been doing it for 20, it's just.
It's cool to see the evolution.
It just takes time.
One of my clients out ofBerkeley he's just like you're
(13:04):
doing a great job, dale, keep itup, but it's going to take a
whole, it's going to be agenerational shift.
Do we have enough time?
I don't know, but things taketime.
People want their money to grow, so it's baby steps.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
There've been so many really bad players on the scene
in terms of the bankingindustry, and everyone can think
of some examples of some of thebad players.
I mean what Volkswagen did whenthey cheated, or the whole
crisis at 2008 and the meltdownof the housing and mortgage
industry.
There are just so many thingslike that that have happened
(13:42):
that I think it's reallyimportant to look at what are we
investing in and where's ourmoney going.
Is this really legit?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
And so one way is to be really invested in socially
responsible investing right yeahyou bring up 2008, which is,
you know, I went through it as amanager managing money, not at
sustained vest, it was theprevious firm I was with.
Wow, what a wild ride that was.
And if you ever look up, peopleremember Tarp.
(14:14):
But every once in a while I getlike in one of my bitter moods
and I'll Google Tarp.
You know Wikipedia, tarp, andyou'll see who the banks were
that really brought the wholething down.
And I still have a bitter tastein my mouth from those banks
and I don't want to again.
I'm not here to point fingers,but many of my clients most of
(14:36):
them, when I buy regional bankCDs they tell me don't stay away
from the big banks.
You know Viva and Citi and I'mall for it because they were one
of the you know, if not the oneof the big reasons that things
really went sour back then andnow, and you can Google anything
these days.
But Tarp is interesting.
And now, of course, whichcompanies are funding?
(14:58):
Who are lending the most to thefossil fuel industry?
Right, and again, I'm notsaying Exxon is horrible.
Right, you know Exxon andChevron.
They are horrible right now,but who's to say, you know,
maybe in 10 years they'll be themost sustainable energy
companies in the world, right?
So again, I'm not saying it'slike the classic McDonald's
(15:19):
versus Chipotle McDonald'sdoesn't score very highly with
overall ESG compared to Chipotleright now.
But I'm saying let's giveeverybody a chance.
It doesn't mean we're going toinvest in you right now, but
let's give you a chance.
And maybe in 10 yearsMcDonald's will be at my
client's portfolio, but rightnow it's not and I don't know
(15:39):
how that's going to turn out.
But right now you know Exxon andChevron are not doing much in
the way of alternatives.
You can look this up, everybodycan see it.
As far as a percentage of theiroverall revenue or how much
they're spending on renewables,they rank very poorly compared
to other peers in the energysector.
But in 10 years maybe that'llchange.
But right now we can see thedata and it's just not there.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
So well, let's take a short break and we'll be back
in just a minute with more fromDale Wannon, and we're going to
get into some really good juicystuff in this next segment, so
stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with OSHA, art,
(16:27):
nature, humanity, and I'm yourhost, osha Hayden.
I'm here today with Dale Wannonof SustainVest in Petaluma, and
we are talking about money howyou can use your money to make
more money while doing good forthe planet at the same time.
So I wanted to talk a littlebit about the movement of people
(16:51):
who've drunk the Kool-Aid fromthe fossil fuel companies and
are right now fighting to keepthe coal industry fired up.
We're just reading a storyabout it the other day.
In some states, they're doingeverything they can to prop up
the coal industry because theythink that we just need to have
more carbon in the atmosphereand save the coal industry, and
(17:13):
so these people seem to berejecting anything that they
consider to be quote woke.
So, considering the way thingsare going to be going in the
future, are they missing out onsome of the best performing
investments, and how would youhelp them make more money by
investing sustainably?
Speaker 2 (17:35):
That's another big one.
You always come out with thewhammy.
So I think you hit a couple ofthings there.
One is this anti-movement andthe politicians are starting to
get involved, which is reallyinteresting.
I think you may be referring tothe recent news where it's one
of the politicians I want to sayfrom Kentucky, but definitely
one of the coal mining states,who's saying that investors
(17:59):
should not have ESG sustainableinvesting choices in their 401k
plans.
That was what he.
I don't know why he did thisand where he came from, but I
think I've kind of tweeted aboutthis.
I was like he doesn't know whathe's talking about.
I was like this jabroni, likethis clown doesn't even know
what he's talking about.
And I know this only fromexperience that I've managed a
few 401k plans.
(18:19):
When somebody works at a joband they say, okay, I'm going to
put some money away into thisplan that my employers asked me
to do, it's actually requiredthat they have not only
sustainable choices but alsonon-sustainable choices.
Right, and the ones that Imanage.
I'd say you're going to haveemployees who maybe don't want
to do the sustainable, morefossil fuel free things, so you
(18:42):
have to give them that choice.
So where this person thispolitician was coming from.
I don't even know.
I don't even want to waste time, because I really feel like he
just is being an advocatebecause his lobbying that's
occurring is pushing him to saystuff like that.
So I always mentioned in mytweets when I'm going to bed if
(19:03):
anybody ever wants to sit downand have coffee with me, these
politicians included, let's doit, because I don't think you
understand.
What we're doing is not likeI'm not out there hugging trees,
and I'm doing this because, Ibelieve, for my client's benefit
, you're just taking an extrastep to weed out companies that
just aren't addressing theseissues, and I mentioned a few of
(19:23):
them.
But it's pretty clear that if Idon't know if a data storage
company has their warehouses ortheir storage facilities next to
a flood prone area in Miami, Ihope that they're addressing
this issue and consideringmoving away from that area, and
that's an ESG consideration.
So yeah, I thought that waspart of your question, which I
(19:45):
can't remember.
If that answered it.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
But yeah, because the future, most of the companies,
a lot of the big carmanufacturers, et cetera.
They're shifting big timetowards electric or possibly
hydrogen, but the fossil fuelspewing cars are going to be a
thing of the past.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
But so if they don't want to invest in anything
that's woke, aren't they goingto miss the bandwagon there and
be invested in things likefossil fuel companies that are
going to go down?
Speaker 2 (20:18):
Yeah, I mean you're kind of answering the question,
but clearly Ford and GM, they'reall getting involved in EVs.
I mean, ford is pretty amazing.
I'm still waiting for thatstock to do something.
It's sort of quite a few of myclients own it because the Ford
F-150 is the number one sellingvehicle over the last 25 years
every year the pickup truck, andnow they're committed to go
(20:39):
100% EV in their Ford F-150 asof next year and so if we're
sort of waiting to see how thatplays out for them.
But absolutely and you mentionedcoal mining I remember I was
doing something called shortingcoal mining.
This was like seven or eightyears ago and I won't get into
options trading or anything likethat.
But companies and they stillare folding like Peabody.
(21:03):
These are coal manufacturingcompanies that are publicly
traded and shorting is a way tomake money.
I had a few clients who werelike if we really don't believe
in what they're doing, not onlydo we not own them, let's short
them, because we feel like thestock price is going to go down
in value.
I'm not recommending optionstrading to any clients, but it
was kind of a fun time becauseyou watched your investment
(21:24):
shoot up in value in PeabodyEnergy as they were going out of
business and so and if you canGoogle and I do have this in the
book where I talk aboutelectric vehicles and the shift
and the metaverse and there's somany cool things happening
right now that they all have aplay in sustainability, whether
it's EVs, robots the robots arecoming and maybe they'll help us
(21:48):
be more sustainable with ourlives, or maybe they'll just get
rid of all of us, who knows?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
They might say well, you guys are illogical.
You're polluting the planetthat you depend on in order to
live.
So what do we need you for?
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Maybe they'll come up with a better answer than Elon
Musk has or whoever else has sofar, so let's not count about
you.
They might have the answer.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
They might, they might.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And definitely solar and wind companies.
I won't get into it, but youcan see the difference in
performance of companies likeFirst Solar or Enphase.
These are companies that haveto do with solar panels and
installation and et cetera, etcetera.
And you can put them up againstExxon or Chevron.
Anybody can.
You'll see the difference.
(22:36):
Now, two different industries.
One's been around for 100 years, one's been around for 20.
Solar is still trying to findits way and prices have come
down so much you're going to getme in my stock valuation
problem.
Right now.
It's really difficult todecipher what's happening with
solar because prices have comedown.
You put years ago it cost$50,000 to put solar panels in
(22:57):
move and now it's 15.
Well, the market doesn't reallylike to see that because they
want to see companies makingmoney and not making less.
So that's still working its wayout.
And then you have Exxon andChevron that they've had a good
run, especially when we go towar with a huge country, a
communist country, that controlsmost of the oil and that's why
(23:17):
the price of oil went up above$100.
But remember, exxon and Chevronare 100% reliant on the price
of one thing and any goodinvestor knows it's one thing
that they're reliant on, andthat's oil, and that's not a
very diversified company to beinvested in.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Right, and do you want to be perpetuating that?
You know that's the otherquestion.
I mean, I love the idea that Ican use my money to help create
positive change in the world andmake money at the same time, so
that's kind of a real win-win.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
It is yeah, and you know it's great when you get the
emails that are three or fourmonths later that say you know
what?
I'm looking at my quarterlyreport and I feel like there's a
weight that's been lifted offmy shoulders.
And I'm not just saying that tobe cheesy, it's just that's.
You don't get those very often,but it is nice to hear that
because of taking them away fromthe, you know the vanguards and
(24:17):
then they see the newsletter,like okay, this makes me feel
better.
I'm still invested, I got tosave money, I want to take
vacations every year, but it'sgood to know that they've
shifted away.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Let's talk about something you've done, a lot of
which is shareholder advocacy.
So can you talk about why it'simportant and how any investor
can, as you say, take on the manthrough simple actions?
And so how can someone who'snot a millionaire, who doesn't
have all that power, how canthey actually have an impact
(24:50):
with these companies?
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, shareholder activism.
I'm surprised it doesn't getmore press and because I find it
really interesting and peopledon't realize the power we have
so well.
I have to give a shout out toagain John Harrington, who's
like my.
I keep saying my Obi-Wan Kenobi.
But there are certain people inthis industry that have been
doing it for a long time and Ialways say, any industry you're
in, it's good to have a mentor.
(25:13):
They may not know they're amentor, but somebody to kind of
watch what they're doing,because they're really helpful
and they can inspire others.
But so, yeah, so shareholderactivism is a way to sort of,
instead of just owning thecompany, you can do something
else.
You can own the company, butthen you can also sort of poke
them a little bit if you seesomething that they're doing
(25:33):
that you may not agree with.
Now I always say remember,these are publicly traded
companies and you can't do thiswith a private company like
sustain vest.
I'm a private health company.
You know these are publiccompanies.
Remember, like when MarkZuckerberg decided to go public
with his already huge company,he did it because he wanted to
grow.
(25:53):
He did it because he wanted tomake more money.
Once he decided to go public.
He's now just as public as thepublic library, right?
And people sometimes forget.
Oh, elon Musk.
He might be the richest guy inthe world, but guess what?
We own him like I don't know,not as a person, but he
relinquished his ownership ofhis company.
Now he has a big chunk of hiscompany still, but because now
(26:14):
the public owns it, we have aright to say something.
So shareholder activism is thatwhere you have the ability to
write something to the company,it has to be 500 words or less,
and of course I have a chapterabout this in the book.
I hope I don't make it veryboring.
I talk about being hungoverwith my dog, like licking my
toes, and me filing one of theseproposals.
(26:35):
You don't have to berocket-sized to do it.
You do have to know the ins andouts a little bit, but and you
can just say hey, company, in500 words or less, I would
really like it if you did suchand such a little bit better.
Right, and there's reasonsbehind this.
Because I'm a stock owner.
I feel like if you don'taddress this, it's going to
negatively affect the value ofmy stock that I own in you.
(26:57):
So there's a way to do it andyou only need a few thousand
dollars.
It used to be you just had tohold two thousand dollars and
that was it of the stock and hadto hold it for one year.
The SEC and the powers that beupped it to I think it's 30,000
for one year.
Or you can just own threethousand dollars of the stock
for three years.
(27:18):
In other words you have to holdit for three years before you
can commit.
But three grand in this day andage with inflation and
everything, it seems like a fairamount to have some beat the
file.
And I help clients do some ofthese because they get like oh,
I can't believe Starbucksdoesn't have the good milk
they're using non-organic andthey're like let's file a
(27:39):
resolution against that.
So it's exciting when you seeclients are like do I own that
stock?
I'm like you do.
You have 40,000 dollars inStarbucks or whatever it is, and
then you can kind of get thewheel spinning on file.
So it's fun.
The client, the companies don'tlike them.
You know the attorneys get theproposal from you and you have
to send it a certain way thatit's signed for and everything.
(28:01):
And it's great to get thoseemails from the attorneys.
Attorneys are great, we allneed them.
But the corporate attorneys at,like these big public companies
, they're like wait, what isthis?
Because some of these companiesmaybe have never seen one
before, and so it's just aninteresting way to kind of say
hey, you're public, I have aright to this.
It's not me against you.
It's literally me saying, hey,I can help you, if you just
(28:25):
listen, I'm a public.
And then the SEC has the finalsay and, as you can tell, I'll
keep talking about this.
It's not like the company or Ihave the final say on whether
this gets on the proxy.
The SEC decides like, oh, thisperson has a valid point.
Or they'll say this person'scrazy, this stockholder.
They cut it off at that.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
So I mean, if you do get the approval and it goes on
as a proxy vote, then everyone,all of the shareholders, can
vote on it and say yes or no.
Right?
Speaker 2 (28:59):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I guess that's another reason to read your
shareholder.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Yeah, maybe not every one of them.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
But yeah, you know yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, as an advisor, you know I vote on behalf of my
clients and if you do havesomebody that helps you, let ask
them.
You know when a client comes on, there's a yes or no and I open
the client's like you do it,because I can vote in favor of
shareholder proposals and I havea system that I pay for to do
it to make it easier for me, asopposed to a client having to
(29:30):
get 50 of these things everyyear, or 20 or whatever it is,
and have to check the boxes.
But definitely anybody can seethe proxy statement.
They're online because it's apublic traded company and
they're pretty juicy.
You know they're black andwhite and they're 50 pages.
They don't make them veryinteresting, but you can dive in
.
It's really interesting.
Not only are the shareholderproposals on there, but also
(29:51):
like compensation I go.
I didn't know that the boardmembers were getting paid
$60,000 each quarter to go to aboard meeting.
So it's there's juicy stuffinside of those things that you
just look and yeah, yeah, thatgives you a lot more information
.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Actually, let's go to a short break and then we're
going to talk about future stuff, so we'll be back in just a
moment with more of Dale Wanin,and his book is Don't Feed the
Clowns Sustainable Investing inEveryday Life.
Stay tuned.
In case you're just joining us,this is Aspire, with OSHA Art,
(30:39):
nature, humanity, and I'm yourhost, osha Hayden.
I am here with Dale Wanin ofSustainVest, an investment firm
in Petaluma, and we are talkingabout sustainable investing and
also about his new book, whichis quite a good read.
(31:00):
Actually, you might think that,reading a book about investing
sustainable or not you mightthink you know yawn.
But it's actually a pretty goodbook and it's funny and it's
fun and it's interesting and youlearn a lot, and it's called
Don't Feed the ClownsSustainable Investing for
(31:23):
Everyday Life.
Before we talk about futurestuff, I just want to ask you a
quick question about the clowns.
Who are the clowns and whydon't we want to feed them?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
What a horrible title for a book.
But I keep getting asked aboutthe title.
You know, actually I never evenhad a title throughout the book
process and writing.
If anybody ever wants to emailme who wants to write a book
themselves, please do, because Ilove talking about it because I
learned so much aboutpublishing and all this stuff.
What happened was my book coach.
You know she would help me.
Every two weeks we'd have adiscussion.
(31:58):
It was great.
Get a book coach if you can, aslong as they're not too pricey
and you like them and you getalong.
We were trying to come up with atitle and I kept a document
that said titles and I think Ihad 14 or 15 of them listed for
the book and this one's not funenough, but I want to say it was
the book coach, if I remember,that came up with something.
She said you keep talking aboutclowns and the buffoonery in
(32:20):
the investment world, and thatgoes to my experience.
When I was a young one, in my20s, I kind of started going
through the insurance companiesand banks and broker houses and
did the whole thing.
So that's where it came from.
I have seen and I've been inthe carnival, as I referred to
the book quite a bit and I justkept calling them clowns, which
(32:41):
I know that's a horrible word touse, but it's my way of saying
just be careful.
I've seen things.
I still see it to this day.
I have clients who bring mestatements and they're like I
don't know what this personcharged me for what, and it was
for a trade.
And it cost $800 to do a trade.
And I was just like what isthis?
And this wasn't 10 years ago,this is two years ago and so
(33:03):
there's still this stuffhappening.
That's where it comes from.
A lot of references to clownsand I know I'm in this industry,
but I'm really trying to letpeople know.
This is how maybe you want togo, if you want to hire somebody
to do it, or if you walk into abank.
Here's some issues to take noteof and be careful of.
Don't be swayed by the fancychocolates and stuff, because
(33:28):
stay away from certain games andthe carnival.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
That's where the clowns came from and it's not
because you dislikeentertainment-type clowns, right
.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
No, I love clowns by the way I've had a couple of
people say to me I'm not goingto buy your book because I'm
scared of clowns.
No, I love clowns.
I find them pretty hilarious.
I'm not scared of them at all.
Speaker 1 (33:49):
So we're talking about a different type of clown,
not the clowns that entertainand that are fun and that are
funny.
Make you laugh.
You're talking about the clowns, who are big-time jokers,
taking your money and tellingyou something else.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
That's right, and there's so many parts of that,
whether it's what type of fun toinvest in, like class shares,
whether it's insurance andannuities I'm using that term
very vaguely You're talking tosomebody who grew up East Coast,
atlantic City, the boardwalk,and that picture of the clown
that I have on the cover is.
The publisher came up withthree different pictures of
(34:27):
clowns and I said, oh, it's thatone, because I remember on the
boardwalk in Atlantic Citythat's what the clowns sort of
reminded me of.
Speaker 1 (34:35):
So let's talk about the future.
Let's talk about where we'reheaded right now and some things
that investors might want to belooking at and thinking about
as we move forward.
You have a whole chapter juston the future.
Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I think that gets a little weird.
Not weird, but maybe I had afew drinks before I started
writing this chapter.
But no, and I think you'rereferencing the one chapter.
It's called Asta La Vista Baby,which that's just the
Terminator, which is a moviefrom the 80s, which that's when
I was in the heart of my teenageyears.
But the Terminator was one ofthe original AI robots that I
(35:13):
knew of because he was beingprogrammed and constantly
upgraded.
I don't want to get into my realrobotic stuff, but things have
changed so much because what'shappening is everything's
wireless now.
Remember when we had littlefurbies that were like these
cool robots as kids and theytalked.
They only had one programinside of them and that was it.
It could have never beenupdated, it wasn't learning, it
(35:35):
was just there Now to say Ithink, just so people know
that's what's amazing is you canhave a robot now and it's
constantly going to be learning.
And not only is it learning,it's learning so much quicker
that we are.
That that's what's scared.
But the books purposes back toinvesting Sometimes in the book.
I got a little silly and Iwould go off on these funny
little stories about.
(35:56):
Japan has one of the lowestbirthing rates in the world.
It ranks like third from last.
I didn't know this, but Japan'spopulation is about to go from
like 120 million to like 80million, and that's because they
really are into robots, even aspartners, and it's funny.
(36:17):
You'll have to read the bookabout that.
But now what's happening withinvesting is there's things
called robo advisors, and theycame to the scene very quickly
with big companies likeBetterment and Wealthfront, and
I think Robin Hood might bemoved into that.
But I even have one now.
It's called Sustainfolio and Istill have my core business,
(36:37):
which is hey, meet for a cup ofcoffee.
Human flesh is speaking to eachother and that's really the
core of what I do still.
But I definitely see that inthe next five, 10, 15 years, the
young whippersnappers, whichare people like in their 20 and
30s I make myself sound so old,but they may not need as much
handholding as my parents did oreven me.
(36:59):
They're so prone to just go ontheir phones.
So investing is now sort ofsliding into this.
Oh, you can be helped with ahuman, but I'd rather just go
online and have the investingdone for me through this thing
called a robo advisor, and Ionly bring it up because I just
wanted to let people know againfor the betterment of the reader
.
Hey, just be on the lookout forthese.
(37:21):
And I do talk about how some ofthese robo advisors are being
pushed by the evil banks of theworld and they're saying that
they're doing sustainableinvesting.
But you're not going to helpanybody because you're just
putting your money back withthat same entity who's lending
it to fossil fuels.
So I hope young investors seethat.
And so Sistine Folia was my wayof saying hey, it's me here, I
(37:44):
charge the same as the big guys,and at least you know that it's
not being swayed towardsGoldman Sachs or whatever like
that.
So that's what the chapter issort of about is the robotic
world is coming, and now AI,which that wasn't even on the
scene chat, bt and all thatstuff that wasn't on the scene
when I wrote the book.
And now there'll be anotherbook about investing with AI and
(38:08):
these chip companies likeNVIDIA and AMD.
It's a wild world.
Right now we don't know whereit's going to go.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Right, but if you're continually thinking about and
looking at what's down the roadin terms of the future, it can
begin to shape how you invest inthings.
And the second thing is thatyou can begin to influence which
things are doing better byputting your money in them.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Absolutely Like things like the metaverse, which
I already mentioned, and evencryptocurrency, which, again,
I'm not advocating to invest inthat, but it seems to be
sticking.
You know, bitcoin and thingslike that and I do mention this
in the book like meta at crypto.
First of all, the easy one iscrypto.
Some cryptocurrency takes a lotof energy usage to develop
these coins to mine for thecoins.
(38:59):
And there are certain coinsagain not advocating to invest
in them that are usingalternative energy to create the
coins, so that's kind of nice.
And there's two or three that Imentioned that if you're like,
oh, if that really is importantto you to be in crypto, you may
want to look at those firms thatare using alternative energy.
And then the metaverse.
This could be a topic thatnumerous martinis could go down
(39:22):
over this, which is people saythe metaverse and this apple
just came out with their versionof the metaverse, with these
goggles that they're coming out,which are supposedly really
amazing.
You know we are people, we arehumans, we need to interact, but
there's a chance that themetaverse could actually help
with sustainability and I don'twant to get weird here, but you
(39:42):
know there's a chance.
Just like zoom, like we'redoing right now.
It could be limiting the amountof pollution we're putting out
right, and the metaverse couldbe a way to do things that don't
produce as much pollution.
I think I'm trying to think ofthe example in the book which is
, instead of going out buyingthose $300 pair of pants that
(40:05):
were made in the middle of somethird world country, the young
kids maybe don't want to buy thepants now, but they will buy
them for $5 in the metaverse andI know this is wild.
And guess what happens?
They don't even have thephysical pants, although they
can show their friends in themetaverse that they're wearing
$5 cool pants.
But they might have just saveda lot of waste and pollution
(40:29):
because of the fact that they'renot buying the physical thing
Now.
Our kids still going to bewearing pants, of course, but my
mind is still spinning, andthat's why I mentioned the
martinis, because it takes a lotto think about and nobody knows
the answer to this right now,which is there is this
interesting future coming andyou can invest in certain
companies that I know for surethat are going to be benefiting
from this.
So, weird times, a weird time.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
Instead of flying across multiple oceans to go on
a vacation, you could step inthat metaverse and basically be
walking down the street and andinteracting with the monkeys in
the monkey forest.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
Yeah, I mean, we all now, we all want to go to the
beach and put our feet in thesand and feel the sun.
But you definitely bring up anexample of maybe.
There's places that we could gotogether, like me and you, osha
, if we want to go to I don'tknow, the Metropolitan Museum of
Art right together and actuallyput our goggles on and say, hey
(41:27):
, how about this Sunday, let'sgo, take an hour and go and we
go there.
It may cost us money becausethe Metropolitan is going to now
be charging us to go there, butit's the same experience,
except you're not there.
It's going to be a weirddynamic because some places you
still want to go, like you gotto see the Eiffel Tower, maybe
in person.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
Well, that's just because you need to have the,
the cafe creme and that baguettewith the cheese and that's
right, you know certain thingsyou have to do in Paris right.
Speaker 2 (41:54):
Yeah, that's right, new Orleans, like you can't you
know you got to have a baguettein New Orleans.
You can't just do it over overthe Metaverse.
But it's going to beinteresting to see how this
helps with really carbonemissions and things like that.
But we're just in the earlystage.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
It could also help tremendously in respect to
parking spots, you know thatjust occurred to me.
I was thinking OK, so very funyou got to park at the
Metropolitan Museum or at theOpera or whatever, and you go in
the Metaverse and you have topark.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
That's right.
Oh, parking is.
You know, I'm an East Coastoriginally, it's, it's the worst
.
And I'm not a hunker.
I don't hunk my horn anymore.
California has changed me.
I no longer hunk my horn.
But, yeah, and like you say,like a museum could be one thing
, but I definitely want to letpeople know that also, we're
going to physically still wantto go places and feel things,
(42:50):
but maybe a museum, if it'sthree dimensional and Mona
Lisa's right there and I feellike I'm there, that's pretty
good.
And I'm not.
Everybody should go to a goodmuseum once in a while, but I do
hope the museum folk aregetting ready.
They're, you know theirbusiness development.
Folk are just like hmm, maybewe should be paying attention to
this and make money doing.
(43:11):
They could triple their, theycould quadruple their emissions,
still charging, maybe you know.
So there's what a wild world.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
They were doing a lot actually during COVID.
You know you could go to theart museum.
I mean not go there, but youcould see the art, you know they
were making the art availableso you could go visit the art
you know on your screen.
Nothing is ever going to takethe place of walking among the
trees and hearing the birds songand being at the beach and
(43:41):
watching the waves and theseagulls and feeling the sand
beneath your feet, of course,but it is interesting.
And looking at the future andhow things are going to be going
.
You know we also want to beinvesting in or at least I do
investing in making sure that wedo have a future for our next
(44:01):
generations, that they have aplace to live, that there is
enough water, that there is airthat's breathable, that they
don't have to escape every yearfrom the wildfires.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
Yeah, that's where sustainable investing comes in
and you know we're all trying.
There's so many new amazingthings Like I think of I don't
know why I thought of this likegreen bonds, and now there's a
thing called blue bonds.
We're focused on the stockmarket a lot, with my clients
and you know buying funds thatare getting rid of things that
are leading to climate changeand everything.
But don't forget about the bondmarket, which a lot of retirees
(44:36):
.
They have half their portfolioin something called a bond and I
won't go into the thing, butusually when you invest in a
bond, you don't know what it'sfor.
If Starbucks issues a bond, youdon't know what it's being used
for.
But now these have grown somuch in popularity In fact, they
get bought up so quickly thatthey're hard to buy.
A green bond is where Starbuckscomes out.
It has to get a third partystamp, but the proceeds of them
(44:59):
issuing the bond say it's $100million.
They say this 100% of this isgoing towards solar panels on
all of our offices or 100% of itis going to compostable cups.
So they're issuing the bondbecause they need to raise money
and then the investors gobblethem up because people are like,
oh, if I'm going to buy a bond,I'm going to do that, and then
(45:20):
that's a green bond.
So maybe your listeners canGoogle that.
When we hang up, they go thisguy was talking about that.
And now I'm hearing and I'vebeen hearing this for years and
they haven't taken off yet.
But blue bonds for water haveto do with the oceans, health
and things like that.
It's really cool that theinvesting world is trying to do
(45:40):
its thing.
I mean, there's definitely theevil clowns that are still out
there, but how cool is it.
And it all comes from yourlisteners and you, osh, it's not
me, I'm just a messenger.
The change is going to happenwhen the investors know about
these things, and I might have aclient that's a surfer in Santa
Barbara and they may come to meand say what's this blue bond
(46:01):
thing, dale, can we put 50 grandinto these blue bonds?
Well, my job is I haven't seenthem yet, they haven't been
issued, like on Charles Schwab'splatform, but it's the more of
the investors are asking forthat stuff.
You know, I mean that's why ESGhas grown exponentially, not
because of me, it's because ofthe investors who are saying,
hey, dale, find this for me, andthen I have to.
(46:23):
So it's happening, let's justhope we're not.
We're not too late.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Right, we do what we can.
We're as much as we can andletting that money not sit
passively while it's hopefullygrowing, but actually have it
doing something good.
That's a huge thing, and it'swhen you have somebody who is
committed to sustainableinvestment that you're working
(46:49):
with.
That just makes it a lot easier, because they've done the
homework for you.
But we can also do the homeworkourselves.
That's the other way to go.
Speaker 2 (46:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
And I know that not everybody does.
I know a lot of women give uptheir sort of sovereignty over
their investments because it'scomplicated.
I did for a long time andfinally I just.
I said wait a minute, you knowwait a minute I'm going to
empower myself around how mymoney is being used and what I'm
(47:21):
doing with it.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Yeah, good for you.
Most of my clients are women,by the way, which is interesting
, but they're generally the onesthat sort of initiate, you know
, because they believe.
You know they have strongerbeliefs, maybe, than us guys do,
and you know.
But and it's not young clientsI mean, I definitely have my
head full of young tech workers,but a lot of retired people
(47:45):
who've done well and saved moneyand now they're like okay, I'm
doing fine, I can pay my billsand enjoy my life and my
retirement, but something sortof scratching at them with
sustain.
You know they're trying to, andmaybe they've read something,
but yeah, and to your point,definitely, my job is so much
easier.
It's not, it's not an easy job,but people come to me already
(48:07):
convinced that sustainableinvesting is what they want to
do, which is great, becausethat's what I do.
And so, as a person, you haveto believe in it first.
You know I'm not here toconvince people.
You first have to be like okay,it's time for me to get rid of
these evil Doers in my portfoliobecause it's keeping people up
at night and that there's noreason for that.
(48:27):
You should be enjoying otherthings and not worrying about a
gun manufacturer, an assaultrifle manufacturer sitting in
your IRA.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
Right, right.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Yeah, baby steps, baby steps.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
And one step would be to get this book.
Where can they get it?
Do they just go online, or canthey get it at the local
bookstore?
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, it is at the local Copperfields in Sebastopol
and Santa Rosa and Penaluma, soit's there.
Other than that, it's Amazon.
Speaker 1 (48:57):
So again, the book is called Don't Feed the Clowns
Sustainable Investing forEveryday Life by Dale Wanin, and
you will learn a lot in thebook.
I was surprised by how muchinformation is in the book, Dale
.
I mean, you know and you haveappendices in the back that go
through all kinds of informationand give you like, okay, if
(49:19):
you're interested in this, gohere, If you're interested in
that, go there.
So you give a lot of reallygood information.
That's like immediately usableinformation.
Speaker 2 (49:30):
I love it.
It sounds like you read it,Oshia.
That makes me feel so happy.
Yeah, Like I outlined everydecade of your life.
Don't, don't pay attention, butI help people like okay what do
I?
Do in my 20s?
What do I do in my 70s?
Speaker 1 (49:42):
Yeah, Well, as I read the book, I thought, oh so he's
going to make investing sexy.
Speaker 2 (49:48):
Yeah, that's right.
I try, We'll see.
One of the chapters is titled.
You know, investing is justlike sex, so I don't know.
I was definitely trying tocatch eyes.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
Right.
Well, I think that'll grabpeople's attention and keep them
engaged, because if they'relaughing while they're reading,
then that sort of changes thedynamic that they might have
about.
Oh, investing is difficult,like you know, but if you're
laughing while you're readingand learning about it, it shifts
your attitude towards investing, I think opens it up.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Yeah, that's, exactly it so thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (50:21):
And now you have, your website is sustainvestcom.
So sustain like sustainable,sustain vest VST.
Speaker 2 (50:31):
That's right yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:33):
So you can go there and learn more about Dale Wannon
and get some information there.
You can read his book and itjust has been a pleasure talking
with you today.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Thanks, Ocean.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I hope all of you listening have really enjoyed
this and find it inspiring andstimulating.
Thank you all for listeningtoday.
As you go about your week, havean inspired week and live your
joy.
See you next time.
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