New Green Products Tripling And Doubling Each Year In US. – [COMMENTARY] “Research ranging from product launches to retail sales shows that green products are staying strong, with long-time green companies like Seventh Generation seeing strong sales and mainstream companies launching more green lines, AdAge reports. Companies have launched 458 products that claim to be ’sustainable,’ ’environmentally friendly’…

SustainableBusiness.com Issues Its Report: The State of Green Investing 2009. – [COMMENTARY] “In 2008, many green mutual funds, ETFs and individual stocks sunk 50-80%, while the Dow shed about 40%. But green investors can also expect their portfolios to rise higher than the overall market as it recovers… While the Dow is up 21% from its low in…

Europe’s December SRI Fund Sales Hit 1-Billion Euros For The First Time. – [COMMENTARY] “… figures compiled for Responsible Investor by Lipper Feri, the investment data group. Total sales for the SRI sector for December, 2008 were €999.4m ($1.3bn) to take its overall value of to €35.4bn. Significantly, total SRI fund sales came out at 10% of the…

Major Socially Responsible Investor (SRI) Groups Ask Obama To Create ’Office for Innovation in Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).’ – [COMMENTARY] “A dynamic Office for Innovation in CSR will help ensure that the federal government not only leads and assists the business sector to integrate best practices in governance, transparency and management of environmental and social issues, but also…

American Values: ’Secular Spiritualists’ Surpassing ’Traditional Materialists.’ Markets Being Reshaped. – [COMMENTARY] “The Secular Spiritualist view of the American Dream has been adopted by Americans across the nation, in all walks of life. They are Americans who are becoming more satisfied with fewer material assets and less wealth, even as the nation’s harsh economic climate has made living…

Top Rated Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) Research Team Cut At Citi. – [COMMENTARY] “Industry sources said they had been told that the SRI team, which earlier this month scooped the award for the best European SRI broker firm in the Thomson Reuters Extel/UKSIF
2008 Socially Responsible Investing & Sustainability Survey, is being cut.” Apparently, it’s all part of Citibank’s downsizing.…

Leading Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) Index Providers, FTSE (UK) & KLD (USA) To Combine Forces. – [COMMENTARY] “With the exception of the FTSE4Good index family, all the FTSE and KLD indexes in the sustainability space will be relaunched early in 2009 under the ‘FTSE KLD′ banner… Jerry Moskowitz, New York-based president of FTSE Americas, told Environmental Finance that…

US Congress Grants Extensions To Green Tax Credits. – [COMMENTARY] “The bill authorizes a one-year extension for federal production tax credits for wind power, which means developers and lobbyists will be able to take a few months off before badgering Congress for another extension starting next spring. Solar power gets more breathing room—an eight-year extension of investment tax…

Eurosif Forecasts Near Doubling Of Wealthy Europeans Investment In Sustainable Investing By 2012. – [COMMENTARY] “Nearly three-quarters of respondents have seen an increase in interest in sustainable investing in the last 12 months, according to the Eurosif survey, which also forecasts more than €1,000bn (£805bn, $1,473bn) of rich people′s money will be in sustainable investments by 2012. This…

Investors With $1.5 Trillion In Investments Ask US Senate To Extend Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Tax Credits. – [COMMENTARY] The current tax credit regime is set to expire at the end of this year and has been helpful in promoting renewable energy projects throughout the US. “In the letter [to the US Senate], investors cite a February 2008…

Disinvestment In Zimbabwe Gains Traction. – [COMMENTARY] Many investors are now calling for disinvestment from Zimbabwe. Firms with significant interests there include, “Shell, Barclays Bank, BP, Tesco, Rio Tinto, WPP and Anglo American.” Ethical investors, particularly, may want to consider their stance concerning such investments. It is interesting that the companies cited in this article are high on most ethical…

Companies In US Coming Clean On Their Political Contributions. – [COMMENTARY] Finally, more US public companies are seeing fit to provide details on their political contributions. I believe that this sort of reporting should be mandatory for public companies everywhere. You can see a list of the companies providing this information at the following link. Political disclosure tops…

The Dream Of Energy-Efficient Superconductivity At hand. – [COMMENTARY] Green investors take note. Superconductivity has long held-out the promise of enormous efficiencies in energy production and transmission. Here is an example of a pioneer application by American Superconductor. Superconductor cable gets energized on Long Island, by David Ehrlich, April 30, 2008, cleantech.com, USA. Is Big Oil Giving-Up On Alternative…

Data Shows Swiss Banks Engaging Heavily In Funding Sustainable Development. – [COMMENTARY] “OnValues, a Swiss sustainable research company…. found that Swiss fund managers had SFr30bn in sustainability assets at the end of 2007, up 67% from SFr17.9bn at the end of 2006. Including assets managed in Switzerland for overseas investors, the total reached SFr34bn…. high net worth and…

Nearly 45% Of Canadian Bank Shareholders Approve ’Say-On-Pay’ Resolution. – [COMMENTARY] Shareholders of one of Canada’s largest banks, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC), have set a major Canadian precedent. The motion calls on the CIBC to hold a non-binding shareholder resolution each year on executive compensation. “It’s the first time Canadian shareholders have seen this kind of…

UN Global Compact Delists Hundreds Of Companies For Missing Reporting Deadlines. – [COMMENTARY] Similar to ’greenwashing’ where companies say they are green but are not, companies signed-on en masse to the UN’s Global Compact’s ten principles. “The Global Compact’s ten principles [are] in the areas of human rights, labour, the environment and anti-corruption enjoy universal consensus…” Check this list to see…

American Charitable Foundations Aligning Their Investments To Social Goals. – [COMMENTARY] The $8.5 billion William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the $6.1-billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and $7.8-billion W. K. Kellogg Foundation are among the many foundations now beginning to follow a ’mission-based investing’ strategy for their investments. It is good to see the big US…

61% Of French Institutional Investors Had Ventured Into Socially Responsible Investing In 2007, Up From 48% In 2006. – [COMMENTARY] “Altogether, 31% of the institutions surveyed have invested more than 5% of their total invested assets in SRI. This represents a major change compared with 2006, when only 12% of all institutional investors queried had made such investments.” The…

Al Gore’s Generation Investment Management’s Investment Portfolio Criticized. – [COMMENTARY] The list of stocks in this portfolio seems like that of most large cap mutual funds. Nonetheless, for green investors, it is worth a look at. For a list of their securities holdings as of September 30, 2007, see their SEC 13F filing. For a critique of their holdings, go…