Green investing trend: Avoiding "carbon dogs"

Next time you take a look at your stock portfolio, you might want to ask how many "carbon dogs" you have. What, you might ask, is a carbon dog? It's at the heart of a new green investment trend:

...companies need to be aware of a growing international trend to identify companies' carbon emission status – and direct investment away from what are called 'carbon dogs".

The New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development says a new trend is emerging which sees analysts recommending investment in companies reducing greenhouse gas emissions. New funds are being created to channel major investment to those companies.

Mainstream investment is now moving into a field long occupied by only socially conscious investors.

And as always, when the pure money players are moving in, you know it's really a trend...

"The pure profit-and-loss investment players are moving in now. They believe there is money to be made from holding the shares of low emitters and shorting the shares of big ones," Mr Neilson says.

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Comments

[EcoWriter]

I personally like to go even further than this article suggests. Rather than just avoid bad actors, I like to invest in companies that I can feel good about. There are many funds that invest in cleaner energy sources, and it strikes me that this is a fairly simple way to "put one's money where one's mouth is." So there are many funds that invest in the kinds of things I like to encourage in the world--Innovest, Domini funds, etc.--and I have to invest money in SOMETHING for retirement, so I put SOME of my money there. (I believe in a lot of diversity to minimize risk, so I would never dream of putting everything in just a few stocks or funds.)

[EcoWriter]

I personally like to go even further than this article suggests. Rather than just avoid bad actors, I like to invest in companies that I can feel good about. There are many funds that invest in cleaner energy sources, and it strikes me that this is a fairly simple way to "put one's money where one's mouth is." So there are many funds that invest in the kinds of things I like to encourage in the world--Innovest, Domini funds, etc.--and I have to invest money in SOMETHING for retirement, so I put SOME of my money there. (I believe in a lot of diversity to minimize risk, so I would never dream of putting everything in just a few stocks or funds.)