A growing number of people are investing to achieve change in
the future of their communities, the environment and the world. Socially
responsible investing (SRI) assets
rose more than 324 percent from $639 billion in 1995 to $2.71 trillion in 2007
while total assets under professional management in the US grew less than 260
percent during the same period from $7 trillion to $25.1 trillion; thus, SRI now represents 11% of the total.*

The strategies that define SRI are:

Screening-includes
or excludes securities from a portfolio based on social or environmental criteria.
Positive screening attempts to identify profitable companies with a history of
excellent employee relations, community involvement, environmentally conscious
policies/practices, respect for human rights, and safe products. Negative
screening identifies companies with poor records in these areas and excludes
them from portfolios.

Shareholder
advocacy-invests in companies with poor social or environmental
records and actively works with company’s management to improve practices,
encouraging management to exercise good corporate citizenship and promote
long-term shareholder value and financial performance. Thanks to socially
responsible investing advocacy, shareholder resolutions implemented on social
and environmental issues increased from 299 proposals in 2003 to 367 in 2007.*

Community
Investing-provides investment capital to communities not served or
underserved by traditional financial institutions and gives these communities
direct access to credit, equity, capital and basic banking products they would
otherwise lack.

SRI is one of the fastest growing types of asset management
due to:

Performance.
Research shows that, when properly managed, risk-adjusted and
controlled for investment style, socially screened portfolios perform
comparably to their unscreened peers.* However, past performance is
not an indication of future results.

Information.
Investors can easily access a wealth of information about SRI and
become better educated about social and environmental issues.

Corporate
scandals. Accounting fraud and other issues
have eroded trust in company leadership. This has resulted in calls
for greater transparency, disclosure of information, and stricter corporate
governance and accountability.

Sustainability.
As the general public’s concerns about global warming, alternative
energy sources, human rights, corporate scandals, and other issues grow, new
and expanded opportunities will be offered to investors.

For
more information, please contact Hector Garcia, Financial Advisor with UBS
Financial Services Inc., at hector.garcia@ubs.com or 612‑371-5112.

*
Source: Social Investment Forum, "Report on Responsible Investing Trends in the
U.S." 2005 & 2007