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Making a DifferenceSEC Begins Requiring Government Payments Disclosureby Michael Kramer

In yet another victory for Wall Street reform that the SRI industry fought hard for, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last month announced that it has adopted final rules to require companies that develop oil, natural gas, and minerals to disclose any payments they make to govern-ments. These payments, often done in secret, can directly conflict with and hinder U.S. foreign policy interests and may expose shareholders to geopolitical risks that can directly affect share value. From an ethical perspective, the payments can also prop up oppressive regimes and dictatorships, which often use the payments to grow their leaders’ personal coffers while hindering the democratization of those countries.

The rules were one of many elements of corporate financial reform mandated by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010. The following year, President Obama specifically targeted resource extraction as an industry in need of greater international transparency.

Though the rules were initially written in 2012, the SEC was mired in legal challenges by the extraction industry and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. As a result of a lawsuit, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia vacated the rule as originally written, but Oxfam America subsequently sued the

SEC for failure to write the rules as mandated by the Dodd-Frank law; last September, a federal judge sided with the plaintiff, and the SEC proposed a modified rule last December. No additional lawsuits challenging the rule have yet been filed.

Corporate transparency has long been a policy priority of the SRI industry’s primary trade organization, USSIF, on whose policy committee I sit. Corporate political disclosure remains our top priority. In 2012, the SEC also issued final rules regarding disclosure of “conflict minerals” that derive from the Republic of Congo. Legislation requiring

Holistic SolutionsPlease don’t buy a second homeby Christopher Peck

Sometimes when folks read or hear my recommendation for buying a house they think, “If one is good, two should be better, right?” Well, sorry, no. Please buy a primary residence for you and your family (be smart about it) but also please don’t buy a second one. The challenges that Jim Collins outlines for personal residences as an investment are surmountable for your primary home, but are very difficult to overcome for a second. Collins suggests renting is better than buying, but I think with smart choices, as detailed in the previous article, buying is the better choice. But for a vacation home, renting is definitely better than buying. Why?

The first two reasons why you shouldn’t buy a vacation home really ought to unseal the deal: property taxes and maintenance costs. Neither add to your wealth or the value of the property; they merely keep the property in your hands and not declining in value. Property taxes average 1% annually (half that in Wyoming, three times that in New York) and maintenance will average 1% again. That’s 2% of the purchase price just to keep the property in your hands, even if you paid cash (if not, then add financing costs).

summer 2016 Nº. 89

NATURAL INVESTMENT NEWS

continued on page 3continued on page 2

INSIdE thIS ISSUE

The Resilient InvestorHighlights from the

Resilient Investor BlogJim Cummings, page 4

Looking ForwardCraft Beer and Microbreweries

Evan Quirk-Garvan, page 6

What’s Up on Wall StreetA View on the British

Referendum and GlobalizationScott Secrest, page 7

A median level vacation home sells for $500,000 and 2% of that is $10,000. That’s a lot of vacationing. The people I’ve seen who spend that much are rarely being responsible with their finances, which is sorta the point of this whole exercise.

I can hear your response now: what about renting it out? That’ll cover taxes and maintenance and financing and we’ll make money too, right? Maybe, but realistically, probably not. The reason is one that people rarely consider, and that’s the cost of upgrading and outfitting a vacation home. If you own a home already you know how expensive outfitting a house is: beds, couches, modern appliances, flat screen TVs, driveways, and on and on. At our house we say that everything comes in $1000 increments. New washing machine? Boom, drop a grand. You can easily spend 10% of the purchase price the first year upgrading and furnishing a vacation rental. Have you priced window coverings lately? Ouch. And guess what, ten years later you need to turn around and do it all over again. For many things, it’s sooner than that. Re-upping on tens of thousands of dollars worth of new, non-durable goods every few years eliminates the dream of profitability. Hotels replace their mattresses every four to seven years, to give you a frame of reference.

OK, OK, what if you have an in at IKEA and you’re really good at shopping, and the place you’ve found is simul-taneously really inexpensive and has a high rental rate throughout the year . . . could it work? Please Christopher, can it, can it? Well, once you put it like that, maybe. First, let me deflate this bubble a bit. No surprise, popular locales with high rental rates also have high sales prices. Think about that special place that you love to go—the houses are expensive because you’re not the only one who feels that way. I love north shore Kauai. Mark Zuckerberg bought a chunk of it in 2014 for $100 million. Great, now it’s out of my price range. It’s possible that you could find a place you love for a reasonable price, either during a down market or from a highly motivated seller, but those situations are rare.

But let’s indulge this fantasy a little. The challenge is to define what it is you’re really looking for. Are you trying to reduce your vacation costs? Do you want to be a real estate investor? Are you thinking you can combine the two and have the best of both worlds? Our friends at the IRS have an opinion on this naturally, and, well, it’s complicated. If the property is primarily for investment than yes it could, possibly, be profitable over time, particularly since you can take advantage of depreciation and expenses to reduce the rental income and possibly some of your other taxable income (like I said, it’s complicated). But over time the depreciation deductions start to disappear, so more rental

income needs reporting, and when you go to sell it you don’t receive any beneficial tax treatment to shelter the gain. (You could always do a 1031 exchange into another property, but that’s a different story.) And while the IRS allows you to stay in an investment property, you can only do so “inciden-tally,” which is defined as fourteen days or 10% of the days it’s rented, whichever is greater. There is a small loophole, though: days you spend “maintaining” the property don’t count towards your fourteen-day exclusion—so if you like to work on vacation, you’re in luck!

If the property is truly a vacation home, you can’t write off depreciation and many of the expenses, though you do get to take full advantage of the mortgage interest deduction, up to $1.1 million in debt secured by personal residences. The IRS does allow you to rent your vacation home for up

to fourteen days, and you don’t have to report any of that income. Be careful, though, because as soon as you rent it for fifteen days in a year ALL the rental income is taxable. Like I said, it’s complicated. It’s conceivable in some locales that fourteen days of rental could amount to a decent sum and that would offset some of your costs.

Two other issues I haven’t mentioned yet, but they’re biggies: time for maintenance and loss of options. As mentioned previously, the costs of outfitting and upgrading can be steep. The additional challenge associated with upgrade costs are timing. When is the seven-year old washing machine going to break? Who knows, it could be any day, and my guess is it will be during the most inconvenient time possible. How much of your time will go into doing maintenance, or arranging for it to be done? Maintenance hassles are the top reason people get out of investment real estate; right after “didn’t make any money.” And while demanding year-round attention, the second home is also limiting your options when vacation time rolls around. Let me ask you, “Do you see yourself vacationing in the same place every year for the next twenty years?” Most people would say “no,” and there’s the rub. There are more than 10,000 homes available for rent on vrbo.com in California alone. Why limit yourself to one of those?

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There are more than 10,000 homes available for rent on vrbo.com in California alone. Why limit yourself to one of those?

Holistic Solutions continued from cover

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disclosure of extraction industry payments has already caught on elsewhere. In the past few years, the European Union and Canada have adopted transparency initiatives, and there are forty-eight countries that currently belong to the interna-tional Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which the U.S. finally joined in 2014. Over 200 extraction companies worldwide participate, which is critical to developing global consensus on the expectation of corporate transparency on this issue.

In the new SEC rule, companies that engage in the commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals must now disclose annual payments of over $100,000 to the U.S. federal government or a foreign government, as part of their regular annual reports to the SEC. The company must also disclose payments by a subsidiary or entity controlled by the company, and the rule defines commercial development of oil, natural gas, or minerals as including the activities of exploration, extraction, processing, and export, or the acquisition of a license for any such activity.

Payments that must be disclosed are: taxes; royalties; fees (including licenses); production entitlements; bonuses; dividends; payments for infrastructure improvements; and, if required by law or contract, community and social responsibility payments. The disclosure must be made at the project level.

Opponents of such reporting have suggested that such payments are made to many countries and are considered a normal cost of business. They also suggest that disclosure will give American companies a competitive disadvantage against the likes of China and Japan. That being said, the trend across the world is disclosure, and the global goal should be to raise the bar for all nations, not succumb to the lower standards of business practice by some countries. As we know, there are things that matter just as much or more than profitability, such as human rights.

In the U.S., many companies are already voluntarily engaged in such disclosure to our federal government. In 2015, the U.S. Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (USEITI, a partnership of industry, civil society, and government) produced its first annual report, which details the payments made by thirty-one of the forty-five major extractive companies to the U.S. government. This information shows all types of leases and taxes paid, as well as disbursements made from these fees to local governments and for conser-vation and preservation. The information is readily available

to the public via a user-friendly Department of Interior database: www.useiti.doi.gov.

Extending this disclosure to cover payments to other govern-ments around the world will provide a valuable tool for social and environmental justice watchdog groups as well

as for those within companies that are in agreement with the need to raise the bar on these issues. Resource extraction issuers are required to comply with the new disclosure rules starting with their fiscal year ending no earlier than September 30, 2018.

Of course, transparency is only the first, and some would suggest most politically expedient, step in the process of getting companies to behave with greater ethical responsibility. The goal of transparency is to

make the public aware of companies doing business with countries that have poor social or environmental standards or entrenched internal graft, so that they will in turn: (1) pressure the companies (as shareholders) to adopt better practices and prohibit unethical ones; and (2) pressure

Congress to prohibit such practices. Given the current state of Congress, the latter option is unlikely, while shareholder engage-ments on the issue typically fall on deaf ears with company management and the majority of share-holders that blindly vote with them.

Oddly enough, these common-sense measures of the Dodd-Frank law would likely not have been possible without the deep harm of the Great Recession. Dodd-Frank itself only passed because the Democrats still controlled the Senate, so we are fortunate that the under-funded and oft-targeted SEC has hung tough and done its job. The trend towards disclosure of corporate environmental, social, and government practices continues. One day it will be mandatory for all public companies in every industry.

As we know, there are things that matter just as much or more than profitability, such as human rights.

Making a Difference continued from cover

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Highlights from the Resilient Investor Blogby Jim Cummings

Big corporations at forefront of LGBT rights fightDid you know that despite the lack of any federal laws protecting LGBT people from discrimination, three-quarters of Fortune 500 companies have policies in place to do just that? The “S” part of corporate ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards and good old SRI (Socially Responsible Investing) has been coming alive in increasingly dynamic ways in recent years.

This year, when three southern states passed laws that actively codified anti-LGBT discrimination, some of the loudest—and most effective—voices raised against these initiatives came from large companies. As summarized by The New Yorker:

Last month, executives at more than eighty companies—including Apple, Pfizer, Microsoft, and Marriott—signed a public letter to the governor of North Carolina urging him to repeal the state’s new law. Lionsgate Studio is moving production of a new sitcom out of the state, Deutsche Bank cancelled plans to create new jobs there, and PayPal has cancelled plans for a global operations center. In Mississippi, G.E., Pepsi, Dow, and others attacked the law there as “bad for our employees and bad for business.” Disney said that it would stop making movies in Georgia, which has become a major venue for film production, if the governor signed the bill. Something similar happened last year in Indiana, after the state passed a religious-freedom law allowing businesses to discriminate against L.G.B.T. customers and employees. At least a dozen business conventions relocated.

The article goes on to look at the ways this leadership by corporate interests upends both progressive and conser-vative orthodoxy. Progressives often decry the influence of business on government decision-making, but this time it’s a welcome addition to grass roots voices against regressive new state laws. Meanwhile, as the New Yorker’s James Surowiecki noted, “to many conservative business leaders, today’s social-conservative agenda looks anachronistic and is harmful to the bottom line; it makes it hard to hire and keep talented employees who won’t tolerate discrimination.”

Though we’ve long been champions of the idea that business can play a key role in reshaping society in positive ways, this vocal leadership on perhaps the leading social justice issue of the day is a welcome surprise.

Is impact investing about market-rate returns—or redistribution and reparations?In the wake of a recent conference on Finance & Democracy, Leslie Christian highlighted a fundamental tension within the philanthropic and impact investing community: at what point, if ever, do those with extreme wealth begin easing up on the “do well” side of the equation, and start putting

more of their resources into the “doing good” mission? Christian was pleased to see that “the rarefied world of Wall Street investing and its ‘good investors’ is now being infiltrated and questioned by a small, vocal, and growing number of people with wealth who are eager to question and redefine investing.” She shares a striking moment, when one of the conference participants rose to challenge the underlying mind set of the managers of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, which has been praised for its decision to divest from fossil fuels:

Kate Poole, a leader of Regenerative Finance, asked the following question: “I don’t understand your commitment to

market rate returns. For me, climate justice is linked to racial justice and economic justice. Where do you think your market rate return is coming from? Isn’t it coming from the continued extraction of wealth from poor communities of color, and violent extraction of resources from our planet?” Adam Wolfensohn, member of the Board of the Rockefeller Family Fund, responded, “I don’t believe that market-rate returns are extractive.”

Period. End of story. No discussion. And yet, for those of us who purport to prioritize environmental sustainability and social justice, that is the conversation we need to have.

It’s a fascinating—and challenging—question. Another panel at the conference provided a forum for the voices pushing for those with wealth to upend the current financial paradigm. They frame their approach as Regenerative Finance, which “considers investments as reparations and that we need to move beyond socially responsible investment toward divestment from the oppressive struc-tures of traditional finance as a whole.” Meanwhile, the Rockefeller panelists “emphasized the fund’s unwavering insistence on receiving market-rate returns in service of its commitment to carry the family’s legacy forward in the form of an endowment and charity.”

Christian’s post led me to discover the inspiring work of Resource Generation, which “organizes young people with

wealth and class privilege in the U.S. to become transfor-mative leaders working towards the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power.” Wow! That’s a very different mission than simply seeking some social and environ-mental “returns” from your portfolio. Check them out at ResourceGeneration.org.

Another collaboration of young people inspired by Resource Generation is the Regenerative Finance group that put together the panel noted above. Their mission is similarly broad and inspiring:

How are our investments fueling an economy that stands against our stated values? Are currently available SRI and Impact Investing options growing the economy we envision? How do we move our investments away from an economy that exploits people and the planet and invest in local economies that regenerate the community wealth that’s been destroyed by centuries of extraction? How can commu-nities that are creating regenerative economies gain access to values-aligned capital? What is our role?

As young people with access to wealth and class privilege who believe in a more just world, we are strategically positioned to demonstrate what truly socially responsible, non-extractive investing looks like. We are excited to develop ways to leverage our unique access to capital—whether individually, through our families, or through foundations and institutions we are connected to—to help movements build a world beyond an extractive capitalist economy.

Regenerative Finance shifts the economy by transferring control of capital to communities most affected by racial, climate and economic injustice.

Explore RegenerativeFinance.com for blog posts and reports on their initial funding programs, as well as for links to other organizations and individuals who are asking much deeper questions and making profound changes, as the next generation of wealth acknowledges the long-subsumed responsibility for the inequities and injustices that left them with such a disproportionate share of our nation’s economic pie.

Bracing for climate-driven food system shock?A fascinating and somewhat scary article from Jeff Masters at Weather Underground paints a very plausible picture of how climate change could trigger a confluence of weather-related impacts around the globe that, together, lead to an unprecedented shock to the global food system. He fleshes out a report put together by Lloyd’s of London, which posited several events around the world, including an El Niño-driven drought from India through Southeast Asia to Australia (triggering a 6-20% reduction in key grain harvests), along with floods in the Mississippi basin creating a 7-27% hit on U.S. grain, and torrential rains and landslides causing a 10% drop in Pakistan and the Himalayan lowlands. The addition of a couple of plant-diseases in South America and western Asia add some more 10% reductions to regional harvests, with the cumulative result being a world-wide food crisis.

We’ve had hints of this in the past, as when U.S. floods in 1993 (pictured here) caused U.S. corn production to fall 33%. What’s different in the Lloyd’s of London analysis

is the idea that climate change could trigger several large impacts at once. Instead of the 60% increases in food prices seen in the “bad” years within recent memory (during two big Russian droughts in 1972 and 2010), they suggest we could see global food prices leap to four or five times the norm, which are likely to trigger all manner of social upheaval and tragedy of the sort that tends to trigger us to plunge our heads into the nearest hole in the sand. . . .

It will probably say something about your own comfort with risk to hear that Lloyd’s sees this

worst-case scenario as having about a 20% chance of happening during the next forty years. Even if we dodge those odds, the chart above is a reminder that one or a few modest disruptions can have a huge impact on the global food system. It seems prudent for resilient investors to have at least an awareness of these risks, and, if possible, a plan in place for how to respond if food prices spike.

Visit ResilientInvestor.com to stay current on news like this!

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Looking Forward

Craft Beer and Microbreweries by Evan Quirk-Garvan

I would guess that many of us, even if we aren’t partial to imbibing ourselves, have noticed the skyrocketing number of craft breweries in the past decade. Gone are the days where the options at a restaurant or grocery store were limited to three major distributors, all with at least a few unpronounceable ingredients, and coming from “farms” and “breweries” that resemble factories more than anything else.

Craft breweries, as stated by the American Brewers Association, must be “small, independent and traditional.” This means, respectively, less than six million barrels produced per year, less than 25% owned by larger non-craft beer companies, and the majority of their output must use traditional beer brewing techniques (though innovative ingre-dients are welcome!).

The explosion of interest in craft breweries, besides being a treat for our taste buds, has also been an economic force, with many breweries focusing on using local ingredients, paying living wages or forming employee owned cooperatives, and going green by re-using waste products and using clean energy.

Some of the pioneer craft breweries have become mid-sized nationally known brands, while continuing to hold close to their sustainable roots. While you may recognize these names from your local grocery store, there are probably hundreds of other breweries closer to you that you haven’t heard of (yet!).

Harpoon Brewing—Started in Boston, MA in 1986, then expanded into another brewery in Windsor, VT. All of the grain used in brewing is donated to farmers afterwards as “spent grain” to supplement animal feed. Also, in 2014 Harpoon became employee owned! They were able to do this with the help of Equal Exchange, a company some if you may be familiar with. Harpoon also uses Equal Exchange’s coffee in one of their beers, continuing to build bridges between companies working for good.

New Belgium—100% employee owned—has a strong commitment to renewable energy. Started in Fort Collins, CO, and recently expanded with a LEED-certified east coast brewery in Asheville, NC.

There are also many breweries that are B-Corporation Certified (as we are here at Natural Investments), including New Belgium, HopWorks, Brewery Vivant, Bison Brewing, and Aslan Brewing, among many others.

There are many other fantastic breweries out there doing great things that might not be able to afford certifications or advertise their sustainability efforts. Ask questions at your local bar, brew pub, or brewery!

Natural Investments’ own Hal Brill is a partner of “High Wire Hops” (www.highwirehops.com), a farm in Paonia CO that grows four varieties of hops for over fifty local brewers. Breweries in Wyoming, New Mexico, and

Colorado have won awards using hops from High Wire, proving that local sourcing isn’t only better for the earth, but for your palate as well! Hal notes “the explosive growth of the craft beer industry is creating new opportunities for small-acreage farms who are able to provide high quality ingredients that breweries need to distinguish themselves from the competition.” There is a strong sense of regional pride in Colorado, so beers like Colorado Native, which uses only Colorado-ingredients, are

finding that they fit in well with the local food movement. And although the start-up costs for a hops farm are significant (including trellising and expensive processing machinery), Hal says that their customers are happy (or at least willing) to pay a premium price.

While at a home brewing festival this past weekend, I got to chat with people who enjoy brewing as a hobby, not as a job. Learning more about the sourcing of ingredients and experimenting with different combinations can result in some very unique flavors! Regional differences in water can also create differences in flavor, even with the same recipes, so brewers are very aware of water quality and conservation efforts. It takes about four gallons of water to create one gallon of beer, and reduction of water usage is both economically and environmentally desirable.

Never had a craft beer, or just wanting to experience more of this phenomenon? If you want to support some local brewers, it’s easy! The majority of Americans live within ten miles of a craft brewer, and you’ll find coverage of them in regional alternative weeklies and often in dedicated quarterly or annual beer guides. Try an online search for “craft brewers” and your state to dig deeper into your local creative beer scene.

A View on the British Referendum and Globalizationby Scott Secrest

In spite of the British referendum results which reverberated across the globe, domestic stock markets ended the quarter higher, while foreign markets saw declines. The large company S&P 500 index gained 2.5% and small companies were up 3.8%, though developed foreign markets finished down 1.5%. Bonds, broadly measured, rose 2.2%.

The closely watched referendum on the U.K. departing the European Union, which was approved by British voters in late June, ushered in a dramatic wave of volatility in stock markets. The range of consequences of the unexpected election result are not yet fully understood as the U.K. now deals with a falling currency and credit rating, as well as the prospect of negotiating new trade relations with nations around the world.

While the U.K. is the world’s fifth largest economy (according to the World Bank) still it comprises less than 4% of the world economic output (GDP). We’re reminded of the Greek debt crisis of a few years ago. This caused great volatility in the markets and concern about negative impacts to the global economy. However, the political and economic turmoil did not develop into significant economic fallout for investors.

Some pundits view the results of this vote as a reaction by the British electorate against the trend toward global-ization. While globalization has helped to fuel the post-World War II global economy, reasonable questions have been posed about its broader implications. Some see legitimate issues with the expansion of corporate influence without offsetting protections for labor, national sovereignty, and the environment.

Recently released research compiled by the Deutsche Bank A.G. reported that globalization was the driving force in lifting millions out of poverty over the past few decades as mining and manufacturing moved to low-wage countries. Globalization constituted a massive labor supply shock that allowed corporations to tap cheaper workers and operate with less regulation.

Consumers in developed economies broadly benefited from lower prices on goods manufactured with cheap labor in developing nations. However, the loss of blue-collar jobs caused widespread underemployment and stagnant wages for the middle classes in these same developed economies. For a period of time leading up to the financial crisis, many in the middle class were able to maintain a living standard by borrowing against their homes as real estate values

soared. This was never sustainable and is no longer an option for most.

“We equate the same malaise in the U.K. with that in the U.S. as well as the rest of Europe, reflected in the populist leanings of the electorate,” writes Deutsche Bank AG’s Global Head of Rates Research Dominic Konstam. “This calls for a radical policy rethink from the established political class and, at this stage, there are limited options but all of them have one thing in common: the need to redistribute spending power from those that have to those that have less.”

The fact that this perspective has spread to the executive floors of the giant global banks, rather than being confined to the left side of the political spectrum, is itself significant.

Additionally, middle and lower income voters who feel left behind in the age of globalized markets have been especially receptive to anti-immigrant messages. In reality, economic struggles in those groups have more to do with globalization (manufacturing moving overseas) and slowing global growth than with immigration, legal or not.

The Fed voted not to raise interest rates at their June policy meeting. This reflects their view that the economy is not

strong enough for a rate hike at this point. There are growing expecta-tions at the Fed that there may be only one interest rate hike this year, possibly in September. Some Fed watchers question whether

even one hike will be possible. The Fed came into the year anticipating four interest rate hikes, but economic growth has not met their expectations.

Market results for wind energy stocks have generally been positive this year, though solar stocks have continued to struggle, in spite of the rapid growth of rooftop and utility-scale installations worldwide. History was made in California as PG&E announced the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant in San Luis Obispo County will not pursue renewal of its license to operate and will plan to close by the expiration of its current license in 2025. This will mark the end of nuclear power generation in the state. Energy efficiency measures, solar and wind power generation, and advanced energy storage systems will replace the loss of energy production.

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What’s Up on Wall Street

Jack Brill advisor emeritus

3416 Sequoia San Luis Obispo, CA 93401jack@naturalinvestments.com 805.543.7717

Andy Loving cfp® financial advisor

Susan Taylor ph.d. financial advisor

1927 Harvard Drive Louisville, KY 40205andy@naturalinvestments.com susan@naturalinvestments.com 502.454.3839

Greg Garvan a i f ® financial advisor

Money with a Mission, 451 Folly Road, Charleston, SC 29412 garvan@naturalinvestments.com 843.633.1067

Greg Pitts financial advisor

218 Rachel Carson Way, Ithaca, NY 14850gpitts@naturalinvestments.com 607.216.8308

Carrie B. VanWinkle cfp® financial advisor

1927 Harvard Drive, Louisville, KY 40205carrie@naturalinvestments.com 502.475.3805

Evan Quirk-Garvan financial advisor

34 Wall Street, Suite 801 Asheville NC 28801evan@naturalinvestments.com 828.367.7669

Hal Brill a i f ® founding partner

PO Box 747 Paonia, CO 81428 hb@naturalinvestments.com 970.527.6550

Michael Kramer a i f ® managing partner, director of social research

PO Box 390595 Keauhou, HI 96739 michael@naturalinvestments.com 808.331.0910 - 888.779.1500

Christopher Peck managing partner

PO Box 7775 Nº. 43366 San Francisco, CA 94120-7775 christopher@naturalinvestments.com 707.758.0171

Scott Secrest a a m s ® director of investment research

1308 Monterey Street, Suite 250 San Luis Obispo, CA 93401 scott@naturalinvestments.com 805.235.3031 - 877.861.4161

James Frazier cfp® financial advisor

PO Box 901311 Kula, HI 96790 2023 East Sims Way, #312 Port Townsend, WA 98368 james@naturalinvestments.com HI - 808.876.1786 WA - 360.379.0295

Malaika Maphalala cpWa® financial advisor

19363 Willamette Drive, #150 West Linn, OR 97068 RR2, Box 3314 Pahoa, HI 96778malaika@naturalinvestments.com 503.915.0090 - 877.424.2140

Natural Investment News is distributed to clients and friends of Natural Investments LLC (NI). NI is an investment adviser registered with the SEC. This newsletter is for educational purposes only and is not intended to contain recommendations or solicit sales of any specific investment. Authors, represen-tatives, or related persons of NI may own securities mentioned in this newsletter

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