Questions & Answers

A robo-advisor is an online investment platform that helps you set up investment goals (like retirement) and then automatically manages your portfolio(s) to help you meet them. Relying on software rather than people, robo-advisors generally cost far less than traditional advisors. We’re the first robo-advisor to offer a climate-forward investment management service and it costs the same price as a generic one :)

Your investments have power. They can accelerate our transition to a zero-carbon society or they can slow it down by investing in today’s status quo. Our mission is to force major corporations to transition and decarbonize faster, ideally as fast as possible. By offering climate-forward portfolios at the same price and similar diversity as generic ones, we aim to collectivize and amplify our voices into the largest climate-impact fund ever created. Learn more about our theory of change.

Carbon Collective is an SEC registered investment advisor that offers multiple services, including sponsoring and advising our own ETF. If you invest with us through our personal investment platform or our 401(k) program (CCI Employer) you may be invested in a portfolio that holds on our ETFs. Learn more about our funds.

When you invest with an online investment advisor like Carbon Collective, there are generally two types of fees you pay: management fees and fund fees. When combined, the average Carbon Collective member pays 0.35%  plus $12/account every year in fees. If you had $10,000 in a single account with us, that would be $47/year (~$3.91 per month). 

Management fees are what 1he advisor directly deducts from your account for building and maintaining your portfolio. Carbon Collective charges 0.05% - 0.20% of your account value plus $12 per account annually. This is deducted monthly from the cash in your account. 

Fund fees are the expenses for any ETF or mutual fund in your portfolio. These expenses include management fees and other fund expenses like custody, shareholder servicing, and fund administration. The average fund fees in our portfolios range from 0.15% - 0.30%.  

Carbon Collective currently uses one of our funds. This means we collect fund fees on that one fund.

No. ESG, while better than nothing, is insufficient in creating real impact. ESG waters down all ethical categories to the point where their portfolios are simply less bad, but not actively pushing for real change.

Here’s our theory of change: divest from the sectors dependent on fossil fuels, reinvest that share in companies building solutions, and vote and pressure the remaining parts of the stock market to decarbonize as quickly as possible. And make it an attractive investment by making it cost the same and with a similar diversity as generic options.

Any US citizen, 18 years or older, with their permanent residence in the US.

Yep! In other words: what would happen to my investments if Carbon Collective goes out of business?

The worst case scenario is you will experience a mild hassle as we help transfer your account to a new custodian. You will still own your stocks and bonds, even if we aren’t able to continue managing them. Learn more about our Transfer Guarantee.

If anybody promises you that their strategy will outperform the market, put on your skeptical hat. Despite how humans may try, nobody can predict the future.

So, we zoom out and look at the big picture. If we are to be on a path to solve climate change, some major trends will have to emerge in the next 10-20 years. Fossil fuel production will drop significantly and decarbonization technologies like solar, EV’s, and green hydrogen will rise to take their place.

Our portfolios reflect such macro-assumptions. If you agree, then you could reasonably expect our portfolios to outperform the market, but that’s your conclusion to make. Learn more.

Our base fees range from 0.05% - 0.20% of your assets under management and $12/account per year. Our fund fees average 0.15% - 0.30% per year. In total, we build our portfolios and fee structure so that you can expect to pay around 0.35% per year in total fees. This is comparable to a generic robo-advisor portfolio. 

If you’re transferring money, you may be charged depending on the type of transfer:

• ACH (the most common): $0
• Returned ACH (per return): $30
• Paper/e-check: $5
• Outgoing wire (US): $25
• Outgoing wire (Intl): $45
• Returned checks/Wires and recalls: $30

If you are transferring an existing account into Carbon Collective with an automated transfer (called an ACAT), the company who currently holds your account may charge you a transfer fee (generally ~$75). If you transfer away from Carbon Collective, we will reimburse our transfer fee ($75) as a part of our Transfer Guarantee.

We offer four types of accounts: Brokerage, Trust,  Traditional IRA, Roth IRA, and SEP IRA.

Yep! After linking your bank, you can set auto-deposits for each of your investment goals.

Moving an external account to Carbon Collective is pretty simple. Most accounts can be moved electronically with no additional work on your end. When the account transfers, our software will automatically sell its existing holdings and allocate the funds into your select Carbon Collective portfolio.

If you transfer an IRA, you will not pay capital gains taxes on the sale until you begin making withdrawals (generally after you retire). If you transfer a general brokerage account, you may be liable to pay capital gains taxes. Learn more about transferring external accounts and capital gains taxes.

Yes! We built Carbon Collective to enable you to save for pretty much any life goal:

• Retirement
• Home
• Safety Net/Emergency Fund
• + more

How much should you put away for retirement each month? How much should you have in your emergency fund?

There are a number of simple investment and financial planning best practices. See all of that wisdom in one place in our Smart Investing 101 series!

The worst case scenario is you will experience a mild hassle as we help transfer your account to a new custodian. You will still own your stocks and bonds, even if we aren’t able to continue managing them. Learn more about our Transfer Guarantee.

We keep ~2% of all portfolios in cash. All cash in your accounts is FDIC insured. Your stocks and bonds are SIPC insured, which protects against insolvency, but not lost value of your investments.

SIPC insurance for brokerages is like FDIC insurance for banks. Instead of protecting against bank failure, it protects against brokerage failure. In the unlikely event that our custodian, Altruist, was to go bankrupt, you could claim up to $40.5 million of restitution for your stocks and bonds through a combination of SIPC and private insurance.

Note that SIPC insurance does NOT protect against loss in value of your shares from movements in the market. Always remember that investing has no guarantee of future returns. The $40 million has a cap of $150 million per Altruist incident. 

Altruist is the company that holds your stocks and bonds. Altruist is a digital-first custodian offering cutting-edge technology with SOC 2 security.