Do you know where your money is? On October 3, 2017, San Francisco-based nonprofit As You Sow released Tobacco Free Funds, a free online tool that uncovers how much of your retirement portfolio is invested in the tobacco industry and media companies that push tobacco at kids.
Plug in the name or stock market symbol of a mutual fund you own and Tobacco Free Funds uses authoritative Morningstar data to identify tobacco manufacturers and media companies whose movies with tobacco imagery recruit millions of new young smokers in the US and worldwide.
The tool shows what percentage of your investment is in these companies. And it offers ratings of alternative, tobacco-free investments you or your advisor might consider. (As You Sow has no promotional relationship with any financial service.)
Endorsed by investor groups with $64 billion in assets. As You Sow launched Tobacco Free Funds with an open letter to major US media companies signed by more than thirty socially-responsible money managers with billions in retirement funds.
The investors' October 2017 letter follows an August letter to the US film and video industry signed by leading health organizations demanding that the major studios implement the R-rating for future movies with tobacco by June 1, 2018.
Tobacco Free Funds is the first investment tobacco-screen to include the media companies whose youth-rated films deliver billions of tobacco impressions to teens, the age group at by far the greatest risk of starting to smoke.
The CDC reports that R-rating future movies with smoking — effectively eliminating tobacco from the movies that young people see most — would avert one million tobaco deaths in this generation of kids.
Read As You Sow's October 3, 2017 media release for more details.