How to Audit Your Portfolio for Ethical Risks
You know the tickers. The sector allocations. Maybe even the P/E ratios. But do you know what your holdings have actually been caught doing?
In our analysis of popular ESG ETFs, 17 of 26 of the most common holdings scored negatively across our 11 ethical dimensions. Defence contractors sit inside virtually every broad index fund. Companies with active environmental lawsuits carry "sustainable" labels. Firms convicted of supply-chain forced labour violations still appear in responsible investment products.
The information is public. Court filings, regulatory penalties, investigative reports. It just never reaches you. Until you look.
Here is how to look. Six steps. Five minutes.
What a Portfolio Ethical Audit Actually Is
Forget ESG ratings built on corporate sustainability reports. A portfolio ethical audit checks your holdings against what independent sources have documented: court filings, regulatory penalty records, investigative journalism, and NGO reports. Records companies do not write and cannot control.
The output is not a vague letter grade or a single composite number. It is a dimension-by-dimension breakdown — scored, cited, and verifiable — showing exactly where your investments stand against the evidence.
Three Reasons to Run One Today
1. You Own Companies You Did Not Choose
If you hold a broad index fund, you hold hundreds or thousands of companies. You picked the fund. You did not pick the individual holdings. That means your portfolio may include weapons manufacturers, firms with forced labour findings, companies convicted of environmental dumping, or financial institutions fined for predatory lending.
These exposures are invisible by default. An audit makes them visible.
2. ESG Labels Mask the Real Picture
Traditional ESG scores reward disclosure, not conduct. Companies that publish glossy sustainability reports score well. Companies with clean records but no reports score poorly.
The result: the gap between the ESG label and actual conduct can be enormous. Ten companies with strong traditional ESG ratings scored negatively in our independent assessment. A portfolio that looks "ESG-compliant" on paper may contain serious, documented ethical exposures that self-reported metrics never capture.
3. Your Values Are Specific
You might care about animal welfare but not about weapons. You might prioritise labour rights above all else. A single-number ESG rating cannot reflect that. Mashinii scores companies across 11 independent dimensions. An audit shows you where each holding stands on the dimensions that matter to you — not the dimensions a rating agency decided matter.
Check My Portfolio Against My Values
Step-by-Step: How to Audit Your Portfolio
Step 1: Gather Your Holdings
You need a list of what you own. Any of the following will work.
| Source | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Broker statement | Most brokers provide downloadable statements | |
| Portfolio export | CSV or Excel | Many platforms offer CSV/XLSX download |
| Fund fact sheet | For ETFs and mutual funds, lists top holdings | |
| Screenshot | PNG, JPG, WEBP | A screenshot of your holdings page is enough |
| Manual list | CSV | A simple spreadsheet with ticker symbols |
You do not need exact share counts or dollar values. If all you have is a phone screenshot of your broker app, that works.
Accepted formats: CSV, XLSX, XLS, PDF, PNG, JPG, JPEG, WEBP. Maximum file size: 10MB.
Step 2: Upload to Mashinii
Go to mashinii.com/audit. Drag and drop your file, or click to select it from your device.
The tool reads your file, identifies the companies, and matches them against our database of over 5,000 scored public companies. Typically under a minute. No account required. Your file is not stored after the audit completes.
Step 3: Review Results Across 11 Dimensions
Your report shows each holding scored across all 11 ethical dimensions:
- Planet-Friendly Business -- emissions, pollution, environmental violations
- Honest & Fair Business -- fraud, corruption, regulatory fines
- No War, No Weapons -- weapons manufacturing, military contracts
- Fair Pay & Worker Respect -- wages, working conditions, labour violations
- Better Health for All -- public health impact, harmful products
- Safe & Smart Tech -- data privacy, surveillance, algorithmic harm
- Kind to Animals -- animal testing, factory farming, wildlife impact
- Respect for Cultures & Communities -- indigenous rights, community displacement
- Fair Money & Economic Opportunity -- predatory lending, financial inclusion
- Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing -- supply chain labour, conflict minerals
- Zero Waste & Sustainable Products -- waste, packaging, planned obsolescence
Every score is backed by cited sources you can verify yourself.
Step 4: Identify the Gaps
This is where the audit becomes personal. Focus on the dimensions you care about most.
If climate matters to you, look at Planet-Friendly Business. If you oppose weapons, check No War, No Weapons. If labour rights are your priority, examine Fair Pay & Worker Respect and Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing side by side.
Common discoveries:
- Index fund investors finding they hold multiple defence contractors scoring -70 or lower on the weapons dimension
- "Sustainable" ETF holders discovering that their fund's top holdings carry negative environmental scores
- Tech-heavy portfolios with concentrated data privacy and surveillance exposure
- Consumer staples positions linked to companies with documented supply chain labour violations
These are not failures of your judgment. They are failures of disclosure. The evidence was always public. It just was not surfaced to you.
Step 5: Research Alternatives
For any holding that conflicts with your values, use Mashinii's company search to find alternatives in the same sector.
Every company page shows the full 11-dimension breakdown with scores, cited evidence, and similar companies. If your audit reveals a holding scoring -60 on Fair Trade & Ethical Sourcing, search for competitors in the same industry. You may find companies with significantly better documented records -- without giving up sector exposure.
Step 6: Decide What to Keep, Reduce, or Replace
An audit is information, not instruction. What you do with it is your decision.
Some investors look at a holding scoring -80 on a dimension they care about and sell immediately. Others reduce the position size. Others keep it but do so with full knowledge of the trade-off. All of these are legitimate responses.
The point is that the decision is now informed. Before the audit, you did not know. After it, you do.
What Typical Audits Reveal
To set expectations, here are common patterns:
| Portfolio Type | What the Audit Tends to Show |
|---|---|
| S&P 500 index fund | Exposure to 8-10 defence contractors, companies with active environmental litigation, financial institutions with predatory lending penalties |
| "ESG" ETF | 65% of top holdings score negatively in our analysis; average score of -4.5 across all dimensions |
| Tech-focused | Concentrated data privacy risk; multiple holdings with GDPR fines and surveillance technology concerns |
| Dividend-oriented | High exposure to energy companies with poor environmental records and consumer staples firms with supply chain labour issues |
| International | Significant exposure to companies with documented community displacement and indigenous rights violations |
These are patterns, not predictions. Your specific results depend on your specific holdings. The only way to know is to run it.
How Often Should You Audit?
Quarterly.
Corporate conduct is not static. New court filings emerge. Regulatory actions are imposed. Investigative reports surface. A company that scored well six months ago may have faced a significant enforcement action since.
Mashinii scores update as new evidence is processed. A quarterly audit catches changes that annual reviews miss. Set a calendar reminder. It takes five minutes.
If a major event occurs -- a large regulatory fine, a product safety scandal, a labour rights investigation -- run an ad-hoc audit to check how your holdings are affected.
How This Differs From ESG Screening
Traditional ESG screening runs on a simple pipeline: the company writes a report about itself, a rating agency reads the report, and the rating agency assigns a score. The company controls the input. The score reflects the narrative.
Mashinii inverts this. We source evidence from records companies cannot control -- court filings, regulatory penalty databases, investigative journalism, NGO documentation. Every score is cited. Every source is verifiable. The methodology is transparent and documented on our How It Works page.
The gap between what companies claim and what the public record shows is often the most important data point an investor can access.
Frequently Asked Questions
What file formats does the audit accept? CSV, Excel (XLSX, XLS), PDF, and images (PNG, JPG, JPEG, WEBP). If you can export or screenshot your portfolio, the tool can read it.
How many companies can it process? No practical limit. Whether your portfolio has 5 holdings or 500, the audit scores them all against our database of over 5,000 public companies.
What if a company in my portfolio is not in your database? The report will note unmatched holdings. Coverage spans over 5,000 globally traded companies, including the S&P 500, FTSE 100, Euro Stoxx 50, DAX 40, and most major indices.
Is there a cost? See our pricing page for current plans and limits.
Can I share my audit results? Yes. Each audit generates a unique URL you can share with your financial advisor, family, or anyone else.
Five Minutes From Now, You Will Know
Not what the marketing says. Not what the ESG label claims. What the court filings, regulatory records, and independent investigators have documented about every company you own.
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