Ethical investors profiled

The average age of ethical investors in Britain is rising, according to a survey carried out for Friends Provident, the UK’s longest-established retail ethical fund provider.

The research, based on the company’s 207,000 ethical investment customers, found the average age of first-time ethical investors has crept up from 38 ten years ago to 41 now.

Twenty-nine per cent of the investors in Friends Provident’s ethical funds are aged between 41 and 50 and a quarter of them are 31 to 40. Eleven years ago 18 per cent were over the age of 50, but today the figure stands at 23 per cent.

Friends Provident says ethical investment is ‘not gender-specific’, with men only slightly more likely to be ethical investors (52 per cent) than women (46 per cent).

UK ethical funds under management in the fourth quarter of 2006 increased to £4.9billion ($9.8bn) – a rise of 24 per cent over the same period in the previous year, according to the Investment Management Association. Net inflows for the year were £136.5million, the highest since 2002. Richard Saunders, IMA chief executive, said ethical fund sales were showing ‘some signs of a recovery’ after a lean time.