What is screening?

Screening is the process of filtering and selecting investments within a portfolio based on specific criteria—generally criteria that seek to align a portfolio with non-financial priorities and ethical principles. In ethical or faith-based investing, screening often means excluding companies involved in activities that contradict one's moral convictions.

For the Christian investor, this typically means avoiding companies that profit from grave evils such as abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, and other practices that contradict or violate human dignity. 

So far, this largely describes what is known as negative screening, the exclusion of problematic companies. There is also positive screening, which is the use of ethical criteria to select specific companies for inclusion in a portfolio. 

At Integrity, we primarily use screening to help investors avoid materially cooperating with grave evils, while maintaining well-constructed, diversified investment portfolios.