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GOING
GREEN-GOOD FOR YOUR WALLET
By Andy Summa
Many green activists rue investment as a tool to pay for industry’s environmental degradation. But, as evidenced by Green Century Funds, your investment doesn‘t have to fill the pockets of polluters.
Green Century Funds, an environmentally responsible mutual fund, donates all profits earned through the management of the funds to a partnership of non-profit environmental advocacy organizations. The Funds utilize a simple guideline: shun the polluters, encourage the green companies.
The funds also coordinate shareholder efforts to influence companies to adopt cleaner, safer, healthier practices and products.
In response to a shareholder resolution co-filed by the Green Century Balanced Fund, Intel agreed to share information on potential environmental and safety hazards and to allow community and environmental activists to monitor the implementation of its new Environmental Health and Safety Policy.
After the Green Century Balanced Fund filed a shareholder resolution calling for more aggressive solid waste programs, PepsiCo agreed to roll out a new lid which will save 25 million pounds of aluminum annually and to replace disposable shipping containers with recyclable shells.
The ten-year-old Green Century Equity Fund filed a shareholder resolution to press Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) to cancel any future plans for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge is the only conservation area in the nation that provides a complete range of Arctic and sub-Arctic ecosystems balanced with a wide variety of wildlife. The 125-mile Coastal Plain is the only section of Alaska's 1100 mile North Slope not open for oil drilling.
Funds are no-load and require a minimum $2,000 initial investment. But that’s a small price for economic and environmental security.
For more information, call 800-93-GREEN. or visit their website:
www.greencentury.com
Andy Summa is a freelance writer in Sugar Land, Texas. |
