By 
The idea of investing is very simple: use your money to buy something – a share in a company, a bond fund, property – and watch it grow in value. Once it has grown: sell it and spend the cash.
Easy enough but the difficulties arise when it comes to the choice of what to buy and who to entrust with our money. Basic economics dictates people should buy investments that have the lowest probability of losing money and will return the most.
This theory served investors well but also meant savers put their cash in areas they might have disagreed with: tobacco stocks, oil companies or businesses with questionable morality or ethics.
It did not matter that this went against beliefs. Investors needed the returns. Having ethics was expensive, and it meant making less money. Our economic rationale told us to ignore anything other than the basic sums.
But that isn’t the case anymore – and rightly so. Plenty of studies have shown that companies which do the right thing – businesses that are run properly and care about the impact of their actions – are the stocks more likely to last the course and make investors the most money over the long term.
It does make sense, if you think about it. Take a company that shows complete disregard for its customers, doesn’t pay its staff enough to live, pollutes the environment to cut costs or discriminates against women – why would this business care about its shareholders?
It wouldn’t. Firms that care about how they go about their business will be better stewards of our money. If we continue backing companies whose only focus is themselves, where managers only focus on the short-term bottom line, over the long-term investors lose out.
But what about well-run companies that fall into the group now known as "sin stocks"? Businesses whose primary sector is rapidly losing favour with the increasingly ethically-conscious public, such as tobacco and armaments, are also unlikely to have a bright future generating revenues, profits and returns.
It’s not just about being well-run or not being a "bad company". Businesses focused on making the world a better place – more environmentally friendly, safer, healthier, more sustainable – stand as much chance as any at seeing the best growth and making substantial profits, as businesses and society become more concerned with such issues.
Backing these companies – ones truly trying to change the world – would be a much better way of supporting a better future than disrupting traffic, climbing planes and gluing yourself to buildings like we have seen from Extinction Rebellion activists.
The main issue, until now, has been a lack of options for those who did want to invest ethically, but where society goes, fund firms will follow.
Investors who care about the impact of their investing are now spoilt for choice. Ethical funds that buy stocks promoting good causes while making a profit, or funds that refuse to give money to sin stocks, have become increasingly popular.
These funds all have different definitions of ethical investing and varying methods for selecting their holdings, but this should mean there’s a fund out there to match how you want to invest.
Nonetheless, it can be difficult to find the right one. This is why Telegraph Money has done the work for you. We have put together a list of our 10 favourite ethical funds to prove that investing with a conscience doesn’t have to cost you a penny.
It is part of our collection of portfolios that include our Growth 10, Income 10, Defensive 10 and overarching Telegraph 25 list of our favourite funds.
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