More Money Podcast - 290 Why Sustainable Investing is the Future with Jessica Robinson, Author, Sustainable Finance Expert, Founder and Managing Director of Moxie Future

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

For the final week of Season 12, I've got not one, not two, but three amazing episodes to share with you before I go on summer break. And for the first episode this week, we’re talking about sustainable investing and financial feminism! To discuss this topic with me, I am joined by an expert in the field (and a fellow Jessica) Jessica Robinson. She is an expert in sustainable finance and has over 15 years of experience in the industry. Her career has taken her all over the world resulting in quite the résumé. Jessica is a global expert in sustainable finance and the Founder and Managing Director of Moxie Future — the world’s first insights, education, and community platform empowering women as responsible, sustainable, and impact investors. She also has a newly published book, Financial Feminism: A Woman’s Guide To Investing For a Sustainable Future. In this episode, she talks about what sustainable investing actually means and how it goes deeper than solely investing in green energy. We also chat about how 2020 gave a good indicator to investing skeptics about what kind of returns you can expect from adding sustainable investments to your portfolio, and finally how not to be fooled by greenwashing in the industry. For full episode show notes visit https://jessicamoorhouse.com/290 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to the More Money Podcast. This is episode 290. Oh my gosh, we're so close to 300. How crazy is that? And my name is Jessica Morehouse. Welcome to the show. Yeah. Okay. Sorry, I lost my train of thought. I got very excited about the idea of meeting that 300. I'm definitely going to do something exciting and special once I do reach 300 episodes. That won't unfortunately be until either next September or October. But hey, what can you do? We're at 290 and that's something to celebrate. Also exciting is my next guest for this episode.

So I get so many great questions about, you know, sustainable investing. And of course, I've had Tim Nash on the show a few times, but I thought it'd be great to get someone else's perspective on sustainable finance and, you know, ESG investing. And so that's why I have another Jessica, I've got Jessica Robinson on the show. She is a global expert in sustainable finance, advising financial institutions, institutional investors, think tanks, governments, regulators, and companies on a broad range of issues relating to green finance, ESG, sustainable and responsible investments, as well as climate, carbon, and gender finance.

So she is also the founder and managing director of Moxie Future, the world's first insights, education, and community platform empowering women as responsible, sustainable, and impact investors. Quite the resume, I will say like it's it's pretty intimidating. I'm totally honest. So she was head of Asia for the United Nations supported principles for responsible investment UNPRI, following a long stint as chief executive and board director of the Association for Sustainable and Responsible Investment in Asia, one of Asia's leading think tanks working to promote sustainable finance and responsible investment across the

region. She also led the Asia Investor Group on Climate Change and played an active leadership role in the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance and the Global Investor Coalition on Climate Change, as well as strategic advisory work. She also has run a global carbon finance company and worked with financial regulators in developing sustainable finance frameworks and policy. Now, Jessica has an extensive background in professional services and business consulting. But what's also exciting is she's an author. She has a new book out, which I highly recommend you check out is called Financial Feminism, A Woman's Guide to Investing for a Sustainable Future. Super excited to have her on the show to dive deep, deep, deep into this topic because she has such an interesting background and has honestly been doing this for so, so long.

So she has such a great expertise on the topic. So you're going to love this episode. But before I get to this episode, I just want to mention a few words about this podcast episode sponsor. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by BMO ETFs. If you're a longtime listener of the show, then you know I'm all about those ETFs, which stands for Exchange Traded Fund if you're new to the show. In my personal opinion, they are the best, most cost-efficient way to build a diversified investment portfolio.

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It rebalances itself so you don't have to. To learn more about BMO's diverse menu of ETFs and to take a look at their free resources on ETF investing, visit bmoetfs.com. Once again, that's bmoetfs.com. Welcome, Jessica, to the More Money Podcast. So excited to have another Jessica on the show. It's always fun to have that, but I'm so excited to have you on the show. In particular, your book is so timely. And I'm excited to talk about this topic about sustainable finance, but also financial feminism. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you, Jessica. It's a pleasure to join you. Yes. So you recently put out this book again, like I mentioned, very, very timely,

I feel like I've been having so many more conversations about women and money, and the gender pay gap and things that we need to do solutions that we can, you know, try to find and actually produce, but also sustainable finance. And I think especially the topic of sustainable finance, it's become a lot more popular, which is great. It's becoming a lot more common. But also, I think the how people frame it in their minds is a little bit different than I've, you know, just like three, four years ago, where people just thought it meant investing in companies that created clean energy. And it's definitely more than that. So but before we really dive in to all those great topics, I want to kind of learn a little bit more about you. Your resume

is very intimidating. When I read your bio, I'm like, Oh, my gosh, you really know your stuff. You're very, your roles are like, wow, head of age, like you've been the head of many organizations. You want to kind of share a little bit, but about your background so people can be more familiar with you. Sure. I like, I like that. My resume is intimidating. Yeah. So, yeah, so just in brief, I mean, I've been in the financial industry for most of my career. But about 15 years ago, I moved into sustainable finance, responsible investing. And a lot of that was born out of a sort of personal recognition of what was going on in the world. At the time, I was living in Beijing, and I was really struck by the visible pollution, the air pollution that was happening around us. And I couldn't fathom why we were ending up in this situation.

Obviously, coming from a finance background, I was like, like okay what are we doing in terms of the financial markets and that's when I really started to explore this whole concept of sustainability but within the capital markets within the investment portfolios and so forth um and that's really where it all started so for me when I say I've been in the field for about 15 years it actually makes me quite an old timer because obviously um you know, as you said, the last three or four years, there's a lot of interest. But back then it was it was a very much a new topic. I've lived and worked all over the world. So you can probably tell from my plummy brisk accent that I'm from the UK. But I left a long time ago. I was in New York for a while,

working for a consulting firm, moved to China, I was in Beijing, and then I was in Hong Kong for a number of years. And now I find myself in the Middle East. So I'm now based in the UAE. And during that journey, I've, yes, I've had a whole range of roles. I've run a carbon finance company, run a consulting company in sustainability. I've worked for a number of regulators, market regulators, head of Asia for the United Nations Supported Principles for Responsible Investment. So, yes, I've got quite an eclectic and well-traveled resume. Absolutely. And you're also currently the founder and managing director of Moxie Future.

Do you want to kind of share about what exactly that is? And I tend to say that it's sort of quite a nerdy hobby, if I'm honest. So it was about five years ago, I was really struck every time I spoke at a conference, the number of women that would come up to me afterwards. So I'd be talking to institutional investors, you know, sort of policy, etc. But women that would come up to me and say, this is really fascinating. What could we be doing in our personal portfolios? And so I decided to launch Moxie Future initially

just as a blog really just trying to gauge interest from women as they start to think about investing and what they're doing you know at a personal level we undertook some research because I felt there wasn't sufficient data out there at that point in time and we we surveyed women in china the u.s australia the uk and germany and the results were very uh very strongly that even depending regardless of what country women were from the sort of around 80 percent of women feel that it's very important to invest aligned with your values and to consider sustainability within that. So sort of from that point, unfortunately, there's a lot more research that has come out since, again, confirming this sort of motivation across female investors. And really, so what we do is we just try and educate. I do a lot of speaking. We write a lot of articles and research. And then, yes,

my book, which was published in February this year, which was sort of a labor of love, really, it was, how can I get it all into one place to produce something that's really accessible for women who want to start thinking about this? I'm curious, when you were doing that research and discover that, you know, a big portion of women are interested in sustainable investing and sustainable finance, why do you think that is? Like what kind of cropped up in your research to kind of show why that could be? Well, I think there's just a concern around the greater, you know, the progress that we make in the world. And I think women do look beyond non-financial impact. They're also possibly more longer term investors. And if you're thinking with a longer term horizon, you know, buy from a company that has issues

around its supply chain or illegal child labor. So I think it's this value discussion. I'm always reluctant to generalize, but the data is very indicative that there is this high level of concern about the state of the world and trying to use different levers of change. You know, I talk a lot about money as a lever of change, you know, as a social construct to really try to translate money and capital into the sort of world that we want to live in. So I think, you know, there's quite a philosophical discussion that I think is being had and I think it's a necessary discussion to have, particularly when you look at the global financial crisis, when you look what's happened with the pandemic, you know, the huge inequalities that we continue to face. And I think we do need to have those

deep conversations around, you know, what are we trying to achieve with our financial markets? Yeah, I feel like it's really only been in the past few years, especially here in Canada, that there have been more widespread conversations about what can we do for climate change or just social injustice. And a lot of people just outside of the financial field are like, well, we need to talk about it, which is great. But I think a lot of people are just like, no, no, no. But what can I actually do? What is something that I like an action that will actually have an impact, which is great to have this podcast, because yeah, one of the best things you can do is to actually kind of vote with your dollars, show your values with your, your money. And I again, like I kind of mentioned, honestly, just a few years ago, I remember having my first guest on not too long ago, about this type of investing. And it was kind of like, oh, this is a bit of a

niche thing. Some people may be interested, but not most people. And now it is I'm just even seeing like the different ETFs and products coming out. There's so many more opportunities to invest in this way, whereas it was very difficult if you want to build your own, you know, ESG, you know, ETF portfolio in Canada, you're like, there's a few options,, you know, ESG, you know, ETF portfolio in Canada, you're like, there's a few options, but you know, it was very difficult to do now it's easier than ever. And I think it's because a lot of these companies are realizing that a there's a big demand, maybe from women investors, but maybe also globally. And so they're checking checking out what's going on in the rest of the world. But I think it is kind of the way of the future. And if anything, this pandemic has really kind of catapulted

not only these discussions, but also development of lots of these products. A lot of these new kind of ESG ETFs have popped up in just the last six months. So that's a good sign. Yeah. You know, but, sorry, go ahead. I think, yeah, I mean, on the institutional side,

I think what's been interesting is actually, it's a sort of risk management awareness. You know, before, I mean, as I said, when I started 15 years ago, it'll make you laugh. People, you know, I'd be knocking on doors of regulators and the banks and, you know, you'd be sort of, oh, are you a tree hugger? And you're like, no, no, this is systemic risk to our economies, right? Whereas I think now the penny's dropped on that institutional level that if they don't grapple

with things like climate change, they're going to be in trouble in five to 10 years. I mean, on the retail level, you know, people like you and I, I think again, it's, you know, the realization that we can do something with our money i think maybe sort of five ten years ago you felt like you needed to follow what the financial advisor told you to do but particularly with fintech there's a lot more democratization in terms of access to these products as you say these etfs that are coming online and so forth and i do think that you know one thing that drives me a little mad um i called my big bank which is a global bank I won't name them um I called them a couple of years ago and I said look I'm sitting on this

cash I want to do something with it um and I want to invest sustainably and the person on the phone actually just said to me well I'm sorry you need two million US dollars for us even to talk about sustainable investing um that drove me mad. And part of my motivation for the book was, okay, if I can do something to create a conversation across women like you and I, around how we want our capital and our money to be used in a good way, then that's a good thing. Because these banks need to be told that there is demand there and we should not be sort of the victims in the financial industry we have a voice and i think that's really what matters here 100 i think that's uh i mean that's a huge issue there's lots of issues in the financial

industry globally and within canada specifically uh so totally agree with agree with that i think part of it is we can't just you know go to an advisor and just take their word for it anymore we have to do our own research and maybe go back to them and be like, actually, that's incorrect. There's this, this, this, and this. And unfortunately, a lot of people that just go to, you know, a bank or an investment firm and don't come in with their own research, they will just take whatever they say as, you know, gospel. And they're like, oh, well, I guess that's how it is. That is ridiculous. Like, that is a straight up lie that you need $2 million to invest sustainably. Like, what were they thinking? What who were you know, I feel like, unfortunately,

we need to advocate for ourselves and, you know, other investors and show that there is demand this way. But it's also like, I'm sure you're gonna agree being a woman, it's exhausting talking, you know, trying to advocate for ourselves in everything, right? Because I know I read this article that you were quoted in recently about how, you know, one of the issues that women face, you know, it's not just like, oh, is are there, you know, different sustainable products that we can invest in? It's just the barriers that are in place for us to even get into the market to even start investing. I mean, the financial industry is still very male dominated.

A lot of us women who do seek advice or professional help feel patronized or not respected or not listened to. I have that personal experience. I talk to women all the time. It is it is, you know, still a huge problem. And so it for me, I mean, the only thing I can kind of do on my own to kind of help a situation is to, you know, create content, have this podcast, have amazing guests like you on to kind of spread the word, but it is kind of, you know, exhausting that we all have to, you know, kind of change the financial industry on the other side. What are your kind of thoughts? What can we do to kind of change what's

going on in the overall financial industry? It is. It's crazy because, you know, I've been in this industry most of my career and I still sit here in 2021 and I shudder at how women still struggle, you know, both as clients, but also working in the industry. And I think, you know, we really have to have these conversations. So one of my issues in terms of bringing the sort of female financial empowerment together on that intersection with sustainable investing is, look, actually, we can, we need to listen more to what women need in terms of their financial or investment preferences. Sustainable investing clearly is an important trend to a lot of women. So from a financial industry perspective, it's actually a really

exciting opportunity. You know, you've got this huge and growing client base. For example, financial advisors, I know you mentioned before, you know, there's a lot of reports and a lot of evidence that women feel patronized and they have difficult relationships with advisors. So we need more women in the industry, right? We need to bring more perspectives. And it's not a simple case of pinkwashing products or services, right? It's a genuine let's understand what these women as economic powerhouses are looking for. And I think the other thing is we need to work on how we communicate with women about money. And I talk about this a little bit in the book,

in that there's some phenomenal research in terms of how the media and advertising industries talk to women versus men about money. So quite often women are, well, they have this perception that investment, investing is not for them, right? But actually how we communicate, we talk about women as spenders, you know, we encourage them to save for a new handbag. And yet men are sort of labeled as take risks, be a strong man, dare for financial success. And that, know if you think about that communication and that messaging over a period of time right we need to change that around that cannot be acceptable and I think that's something again that we we need to sort of shine a spotlight you know it's about building confidence the female investors having that confidence and then being able to go

to their banks their financial institutions and say, this is what I'm looking for. I mean, your point that you made around we have to do a lot of the research now. We have to be prepared when we go to these meetings. Absolutely. And again, that was part of the motivation behind the book is really. And I think I think I even say this in the book. It's like what I want when you put this book down is that you now have the confidence and the tools and the information to go into those meetings. And that's really the advocacy piece that I'm really trying to push for, you know, that we don't hide away, because I know that when we talk about money, you know, sometimes it can be

quite challenging. And essentially that we view our financial health, you know, in the same way that we think about self care, right. And I think those discussions are really important ones to have. Absolutely. I feel like even, you know, I've had this podcast for almost six years now, or I guess at this point, when this airs, it will be over six years. And it's so fascinating just to see kind of the evolution of some of the just topics that I've kind of explored but also conversations I've been having and I feel like at the the beginning of the show definitely lots more conversations about women's struggles with just general finance or investing not feeling confident I mean financial confidence is still a big issue

and we're still talking about it six years later. But also, you know, one thing I would hear often from women is like, oh, I'm just bad with money. I never heard a man say I'm bad with money. I mean, if they felt like that, they probably wouldn't vocalize it. But women always, you know, vocalized it. Because I think they just wanted to put that kind of just so you know, I don't know what I'm talking about. And I'm afraid of making a mistake. And another kind of thing I hear often with people that are, you know, interested in, you know, working with me or something is I'm afraid of making a mistake. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right. All of these anxieties, you know,

piled together. It's again, like another barrier to for women to advocate for themselves to do that research to even feel like they are smart enough to do that research and to talk about it. And I mean, that's my personal experience, too. I mean, I've been doing this, you know, I started blogging 10 years ago about personal finances really only in last, I'd say, four or five years that I feel confident about talking about like investing, because I just never felt like I was part of the conversation. I was smart enough, all those same kind of anxieties I hear still for women, I experienced those too. And I think part of it is because I wasn't necessarily discouraged from having those feelings,

especially talking to, you know, a lot of men and people who worked in the financial industry. I mean, I, you know, it's for me, I kind of take it as a motivation that all of the doubt, but it's, it's difficult if you're just, you know, don't want to spend as much time as I do researching this stuff and talking about it. It can be very intimidating to go from a mindset of, I don't know what I'm doing and I'm afraid to even ask to I'm financially confident. I'm okay, you know, advocating for myself. I know how to talk to an advisor. So yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's really a question, but what are your thoughts on that? I'm sure you've talked to so many people in your research, it's probably similar. Yeah, I mean, you sort of hit the nail on the head. And I think

it's funny. So I often tell this story when I was living in Hong Kong, and I obviously sustainable finance ESG expert, right. And I had a mandatory pension fund that obviously my employer was paying into whatever and i had it for about two years and when i signed up to it i ticked sort of dutifully ticked the green green fund box and it took me about two years to really look at what was in that fund and the top holding was a an american investment bank so from a carbon footprint perspective yes an investment bank you So from a carbon footprint perspective, yes, an investment bank, you know, you're not manufacturing or whatever. So in theory, according to the way

they were being rated, it looked like a top performer from an environmental perspective. The reality is that investment bank was the biggest financier of fossil fuel development in Southeast Asia, right? And I tell this story because I want people to know, like for me, and I'm an expert it took me

two years to figure that out and and i think you know that it's important that we share those experiences because i think one thing the financial investment industry has done very well is use a lot of terminology um a lot of phrases etc that actually they actually sort of mask very simple concepts so i think and it's not about dumbing things down at all. It's about translating investment and investing the decision-making process into something that's meaningful for a woman who is working hard, raising a family, balancing lots of things, but wants to genuinely do something with those investment choices that she makes. And I think, you know, that's the thing that we have to address. And when I was writing the book, I try and do it very much in a tone or a style, like I'm having a conversation

with a girlfriend. Because again, I think, you know, you can be thrown into a room with a financial advisor and they sort of throw all these terms at you. And what does it achieve? You know, it's actually masking stuff that's actually very simple, right? Exactly. Yeah, and I think that's, you know, such a simple yet important thing. There is so much marketing and advertising.

People love using the term like green and then you kind of assume as an investor, oh, this must be, you know, sustainable. So I'll invest in it. It's actually so much more important to actually dive into, okay, what's actually in that fund. And sometimes it's easier to do that than other products, you know, mutual funds don't make it very easy to see exactly what's in that fund ETFs definitely do make it more transparent. But like you said, I think a lot of us don't actually take the time to really dive in. I mean, it doesn't sound like a very fun

exercise. Depending on how many holdings is in, you know, there could be over, you know, hundreds and hundreds of holdings in the fund, but it's so important to really know, okay, what companies are in there and then diving into some of those companies. Cause I remember I, I took a look at one, um, ETF and this was a few years ago. I'm not sure if it was, maybe it was ESG. I can't remember, but I, you know, didn't think anything was wrong with it. It was a popular ETF. And yeah, there are some really negative companies in there. And I'm like, I don't want to give my money to to that, like, that does not sit well with me. And yeah, unfortunately, like, that's the way things are. You can't just, you know, take someone's word for it or trust an advisor, because again, they have their own mo, they want to sell you something, it's really up to you to do that research, if you want to make sure that you're investing

in alignment with your values. So I want to kind of talk as you mentioned, you mentioned ESG investing, just for people who aren't aware, what does that kind of mean? In a kind of a big scale? And also when if someone does want to invest sustainably, what does that mean? Like I kind of mentioned in the beginning of this episode, you know, back in the day, people, you know, and you probably, you know, with your experience, someone saying, Oh, you're a tree hugger. People always just think of clean energy, but it is broader than that. Yeah, no. So yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing, just to make clear, there's a lot of terms that are thrown around. So sustainable investing sustainable investing responsible investing people talk about impact investing as well um and then you'll hear about

esg so environment being like what impact that company or the fund has on the resources within the within it um you know climate change greenhouse gas emissions then you've got your s which is the social factors so that relates to the company's role in society. So labor standards, health and safety, supply chain that I mentioned earlier, and then the G, which is the governance. So that relates to the rules that determine the sort of relationship between the management and the various stakeholders. So it would touch on things like diversity, transparency of decision-making, director's pay. So within that, within all of those terms that you hear, I like to talk about sustainable investing almost as an umbrella term,

because I think we can get a little bit hung up on the definitional nuances. And ultimately, the goal is to achieve some level of positive change in an area in which the investor is passionate about. Now, invariably, that would have a social and or an environmental dimension. And I think it's interesting, you mentioned, obviously, you know, previously, people sort of thought, oh, it's about clean energy. What's happened now is, we've become much more sophisticated in terms of how we understand the ESG risks. And therefore, we've also been able to develop financial investment products aligned with minimizing those risks. So from an investor perspective, I think it's, you know, I talk about how it's really about going through how you prioritize what you genuinely care about. You can't change the world with, you can't solve every problem. You know, you do have to,

at some point say, okay, these are my areas of focus. So for me, I'm an environmental economist and I'm incredibly passionate about climate change. So a lot of my investments are either thematically focused. So I'm seeking out things, companies that are dealing with climate change, whether that be clean tech, like agriculture, renewable energies, that kind of thing. But I'm also looking when I go for broader funds or broader investments at, I want to avoid.

So I want to avoid fossil fuel industry. I mean, that's the big one for me. The other thing, the other aspect for me, gender, I'm a very active gender lens investor. So I seek out companies and funds that are proactively supporting female entrepreneurs. I do a lot of that on the angel investment level. I'm invested in VC funds that are focused on gender. So I think you need to sort of choose what it is that you really care about because you cannot fix everything in doing so. And then when you do that, really start to look at what are the key issues. I talk a lot

about the sustainable development goals as a really smart framework. So if you look at the SDGs, which are the seven, there are 17 objectives that were sort of signed up to by all the countries in the world in terms of what we want to achieve by 2030. And I often talk about how the SDGs are the closest thing we have to a sort of a global strategy. So if you think about from an investment perspective, what is the world going to look like in 2030? The idea is that we will be grappling with or at least some way towards achieving these goals. So things like ending poverty, smart cities, climate action, there's an SDG on gender equality. So I do advise people to really look at the SDGs as a framework because it can help guide your thinking and your decisions. And also just to say that the

investment industry are now developing quite a lot of products and services that sit around the SDGs. So you can find SDGs, ETFs, you can find funds that talk about how they're impacting on specific SDGs. So again, to me, it's quite a useful tool for, you know, for us for retail investors to start making decisions, really. Yeah, I do know one kind of concern from a lot of people is and it could be because it seems like these products are very new, or this concept of investing sustainably is so new, they're worried that they're not going to earn the same returns if they were to, you know, instead invest in something that wasn't, you know, labeled sustainable or didn't exclude certain of certain companies that we would like to exclude. Or, you know, typically, when you look at lots of these funds, they do have higher fees, I hope

that will change. Because sometimes you look at these, you're like, there's actually no reason that this has to have a higher fee. But here we and that's again another kind of i think a barrier or worry for people to invest in this way what are your thoughts on that yes i think this has definitely been i actually think it's a misnomer uh there has been a lot of particularly in the mainstream industry where people haven't understood the premise behind sustainable investing and that actually if you were going to make these choices, you'd be looking at lower returns. Now, interestingly, what 2020 taught us in terms of performance of sustainable funds or companies that are considered sustainability leaders, these ones have actually been much more resilient

through the pandemic and the economic downturn. i think that's actually been quite telling the other thing is now we have a lot more data because obviously we've been having seeing these products for a lot more number of years now so they can compare to say mainstream market funds or whatever and and actually the data and the evidence is now out there uh that actually these funds you're not talking about reduced financial performance at all and And as we saw in 2020, you're actually talking about higher resilience. sustainable investing. I am concerned that some of the asset managers and providers are rushing out with products and services that are labeled green or sustainability or SDGs that don't really necessarily do what they say they're doing. And that does worry me. I think, you know, our market regulators and our NGOs, our think tanks, we need to keep up the pressure to ensure that this is not being abused in terms of sort of, hey, let's, we're offering these things,

but we're not, we're still investing in fossil fuels, for example. So I think that's actually, honestly, my biggest concern at the moment. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's a big concern too. I know this was a little while ago, but I have a friend in the sustainability space. He's been on the podcast before, Tim Nash. And he, I remember, messaged me because I was doing something with a brand about this robo-advisor that was offering, you know, sustainable portfolios. He's like, well, just so you know, there's a couple of companies in their portfolios that people may not be aware that may not fit within their particular guidelines of sustainability. So it kind of goes back to there's a lot of products coming on the market, maybe some a bit rushed, or just, you know,

they weren't carefully kind of crafted. And so it's important to really take a look at, you know, does everything look good, except Oh, wait, they have this one company that's a really big player. And yeah, you know, fossil fuels that we need to pay attention to. And that, you know, should be when you're comparing the different funds or different options to you, you really do need to know what you're investing in. And that's, that's definitely a big message I think I've been talking about for the last 12 months for sure, is we need to do a better job of paying attention to where our money is going. Because I think a lot of us just think of, you know, you know, build an investment plan and

choose a fund and then build your portfolio and then you're good to go. But it's, we really need to think of it as like, we are shareholders, and we do have a voice. So we need to know specifically what companies are we actually saying, yes, I support with our dollars. Are you okay with that? And you may realize, no, I'm not. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I feel like we kind of touched on all of the main things that I want to say. I feel like we already kind of know the answer, but I do want to kind of come back to the title of your book, Financial Feminism. Why did you want to use that as the title for your book? And what does that kind of mean to you? I feel like I've been seeing that

term from a lot of other kind of financial bloggers and influencers and content creators, but I'm curious, what is your kind of definition of financial feminism? So the reason I focus on financial feminism in the title is because I really believe that we're almost missing a beat if we just talk about financial feminism in the context of the belief in the financial equality of women. Sure, that's really important you know we are facing multiple gender related gaps whether it's the pay gap investing gap we talk about gender debt gaps or whatever so my issue is is that yes financial feminism is partly that but actually it's much more than that as well. So I believe that financial feminism has to be more than women simply earning and investing on a par. It's actually really about

empowering women to use their money, sort of to use their wealth so that they can push for this positive change in the world. And again, it comes back to that discussion, the philosophical thing, which is, you know, we have different levers of change and one of them is our investment decisions. So we can use that to really give a voice to women to determine how the world should change for the better. And it's not philanthropy. It's not charity. We're not talking about, as we said lower financial returns whatever we're talking about just saying look the world is in the state it is in today we have to think things differently we have to do things differently and sustainable investing is one of those tools so

financial feminism yes financial equality but let's actually push it to its full meaning and it's empower women to use their wealth. And that's what we're really talking about. Whether that be supporting other women in their businesses, whether that be, as I talked about, climate change. It's whatever you choose as an individual and what your values are, but then enabling those women to feel like that they can use their investment decisions to create that positive change.

Absolutely. Yeah. No, I think that positive change. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I think that's a great definition. And I can't wait to tell everybody to grab a copy of your book. Where can they find more information about you and grab a copy of your new book, Financial Feminism? So you can find me easily on LinkedIn. LinkedIn tends to be my social media platform of choice. And then our website, moxiefuture.com. There's loads of information. There's blog posts, there's research, there's a link to the book and where you can buy it so you can get it on Amazon, obviously,

Barnes and Noble, those kind of all the big book book suppliers so it's fairly easy to get hold of and if you do read it give me your feedback because I really I really want to hear what other women feel and what's important to them um and what else we need to do and hopefully you can come out with a second kind of version or edition in maybe 10 years time to see how much has changed hopefully good we'll have good news you, funny enough. So I have two teenage daughters and I was actually starting to think to myself, maybe I'm going to write

one for teenagers. They were quite horrified, though. Not for them, maybe. They'll think differently. They'll think differently. Earning money or once they're, you know, investing seems like, oh, this is something

that I should do. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Jessica, for taking the time to be on the show. It was such a pleasure having you on to discuss this topic with you. Wonderful. Thank you so much for inviting me. And that was episode 290 with Jessica Robinson. Make sure to follow her on Twitter at Moxie Future. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn and check her out on Facebook, which is just facebook.com slash moxiefutureinsights. And she also has a website moxiefuture.com. And like we mentioned in the show, she's got a book. So check it out. Financial Feminism, A Woman's Guide to Investing for a Sustainable Future. And

you know I'm giving away a copy. It is the final book in my big book giveaway. So grab a copy, obviously, to support a new author, but also continue listening because I will tell you how to enter to win a free copy of her book. Got a ton of important things to share with you, so do not go away. Just want to share a few words about this podcast episode sponsor, and then I'm going to be right back with some very exciting things. This episode of the More Money Podcast is supported by BMO ETFs. With so much innovation happening in the world, why not add some more innovation to your investment portfolio? BMO ETFs recently launched their line of innovation ETFs to provide a more accessible and cost-effective

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companies in that sector that you can gain easy access to. To learn more about BMO's selection of innovation ETFs and to take a look at their free resources on ETF investing, visit bmoetfs.com. Once again, that's b-m-o-e-t-f-s dot com. Okay, first and foremost, most exciting thing, I'm giving away Jessica's book. I'm giving away actually a total of 13 books. And this is the last week to enter. I'm going to be drawing some names after, you know, in like one week's time. And I'm going to let everybody know, not on the podcast, because I will be done the podcast, but I will be letting everybody know, including the winners via my email newsletter list. So make sure to go to jessicamorehouse.com slash subscribe to get onto my email list.

If you win, I'm obviously going to reach out with you directly, but still get on my list. But you can find out how to enter to win all of the different books and what are the books. I mean, gosh, the podcast has been going on since January. Now we're in July. So there's a lot of freaking books on this on the contest. So go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash contest or just check out the show notes for this episode, JessicaMorehouse.com slash 290. Other exciting things that are happening. Well, you know, number one, I've got this is the last week of the podcast. Very sad, but also need I need a little break. But I'm, you know, got some more episodes for you. So this is not the final episode. I've got one tomorrow and one the next day, a solo episode,

which I can't wait. I love basically what I do when I do a solo episode is I make sure my husband's not home or it's just like summer or, you know, he's going for a run or something like being totally alone. Usually have a little glass of wine and I get really cozy. And then I just like have the microphone, I hold it. And I'm just like, as if I'm just talking to you one on one that it's kind of, it's just one of my favorite things. It's sort of like not therapy for me, but it is kind of almost sometimes like a, an audio journal, because I just honestly, I don't prepare anything. I just kind of word vomit and hope it all makes sense. And you know what, I've been doing it all these years and no one's complained. So they're always a good episode. So can't wait to share that with you. That will go out on Friday. Tomorrow, who do I have on the

show tomorrow? Oh, it's another good episode. Tomorrow I have Alison Bakerley from Inspired Budget on the show. And you know what, it's a great name because not only does she now have a podcast of her own called inspired budget, she is such an inspiration when it comes to budgeting. It all makes sense. It all makes sense when you listen to the episode. So can't wait for that. Some other exciting things. Like I mentioned in the past couple episodes, me and my sister, so she works with me now. We've been working on some exciting things, including some merch for my shop page. If you go to JessicaMorehouse.com slash shop, you'll've been working on some exciting things, including some merch for my shop page. If you go to jessicamorehouse.com slash shop, you'll be able to find some exciting

merch things that, you know, just go there and you'll find out what I'm talking about. Also on my shop page, you will of course find my digital budget spreadsheets. If you are looking for a budget spreadsheet, I've got a few free ones and a few other ones that are paid. They're like 20 bucks people. They're 20 bucks and they come with a whole video library to show you exactly how to get your money organized and together. And also there's a link to my investing course, both building blueprint for Canadians. So if you want to learn investing, guess what? I show you specifically how to do it in my course. And it's been such a joy to launch. I launched it in February. There's, we're getting close to 200 students in the course, which is very, very exciting. But

yeah, it's been it's been exciting to see people's transformations in the course of coming to a place where like, I don't know what I'm investing in, or I'm in mutual funds. And I don't understand what that means, or what exactly the companies I'm investing in are to a place where they're literally managing their own ETF portfolio, rebalancing, and they know what all that stuff is. It's very, very exciting. I do link to it in the show notes for this episode. But also if you just go to my shop page, you'll be able to find it there. So yeah, so that's really it for the moment. But I'll be back tomorrow to chat your ear off once again. So thank you so much for listening. A huge shout out to my podcast editor, Matt Rideout. And yeah, enjoy the summer, the sunshine, the fresh air. And I will see you back here

tomorrow. This podcast is distributed by the women in media podcast network find out more at women in media.network