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Funds that call themselves "Green" are a newer breed. Some like the Spectra Green fund (SPEGX) appear to us to be more or less another kind of "Socially Responsible" type of mutual fund. The kind of "green" fund many of us are looking for are invested in companies that are specifically involved in activities and products aimed at protecting our planet's ecosystems and the survival of the many life forms this earth supports.
The green funds, according to Ms. Jane Bryant Quinn at Newsweek, "...own some renewables (clean energy) but lean more toward clean companies in fields such as health care and software. A sampling of no-loads (no sales commissions): Portfolio 21, a global investor in companies with good environmental practices: Winslow Green Growth Fund, in smaller companies, mainly in the United States; New Alternatives, a pure-play global investor in renewable energy; and two Sierra Club funds, a Stock Fund and an Equity Income Fund, that screen out companies harmful to the environment." When you check out the New Alternatives Fund (ticker symbol: NALFX) and you go to their website at www.newalternativesfund.com, you get the impression they cover companies that span the green gamut from clean water, clean air and recycling to companies that get involved with natural foods, biomass, geothermal power, ocean energy, wind power, solar energy and energy conservation. They claim that they don't invest in Oil, Coal, Weapons, or Nuclear Power, but they like Natural Gas which their site claims "...is the cleanest of all hydrocarbons, particularly when used in modern turbines and fuel cells. Natural gas resources are generally domestic." We concur and encourage you to check out the New Alternatives Fund. When you look at the website for funds like the New Alternatives Fund you usually can find a list of holdings or a list of investments. This will give you an idea of some of the specific companies that they invest in, what percent of the total fund they have invested in each of these companies and a brief description of what the public- traded companies they hold are involved in. New Alternatives' two largest holdings are two Spanish companies whose description sounds full of green activities such as biomass (ethanol) aluminum recycling, solar and wind energy as well as biofuels. These companies don't trade on U.S. exchanges, but other holdings like Baldor Electric (NYSE:BEZ) and United Natural Foods (NASDAQ:UNFI) are traded in the U.S. According to Newsweek, the next big area of interest for green investors might be "Water," the resource that all living creatures can't live without. They reported that venture capitalist Joyce Ferris of Blue Hill Partners believes that conservation, distribution, purification, and wastewater treatment will be enormous opportunties surrounding the subject of water. "Traders might consider ETF PowerShares Water Resources (AMEX:PHO), tracking 41 companies in the U.S. water industry," according to Ms. Quinn's article. Green investing is here to stay. It will one day be bigger than the business of fighting wars, or laying fields of asphalt and concrete, or polluting the air we breath with "dirty" ways of creating and dispensing energy. Green investors want to make wise investments in companies and funds that are proactively seeking the solutions to today's global, environmental crises. Like you, we'd rather be part of the solution than part of the problem.
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Seeing Green 
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