| Dear
EarthTalk: Is there any theme for Earth Day this
year, and what can I do to participate?
-- Adele Davies, Seattle, WA
The
non-profit Earth Day Network, which organizes and coordinates
annual Earth Day celebrations around the U.S. and beyond,
is partnering this year with Step It Up 2007, a nationwide
campaign organized to demand bold federal action on climate
change.
As
part of the build-up to Earth Day itself (April 22), Step
It Up 2007 has organized hundreds of rallies to take place
a week earlier on April 14, including major events at or near
“meaningful, iconic” places that are already reeling
from the impacts of global warming. These include: New Orleans,
where Hurricane Katrina wreaked destruction in 2005; Mt. Rainier
in Washington state, where the volume of glaciers shrank by
nearly 25 percent over the last century; and Key West, Florida,
where increased ocean temperatures are causing the region’s
living coral reefs to turn white (bleach) and die.
Step
It Up rallies are already planned for nearly 800 U.S. locations,
where thousands of concerned citizens will call on Congress
to force industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide, the
leading culprit in the onset of unprecedented global warming.
Earth Day Network representatives and volunteers will then
spend the following week on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC,
lobbying Congress directly. Then on Earth Day itself, April
22, millions of Americans will participate in hundreds of
celebrations co-sponsored by Earth Day Network coast-to-coast,
seeking to raise public awareness about our climate crisis.
Says
Earth Day Network, “We all possess the tools and know-how
to reduce our own environmental impacts and carbon footprints,
but lack a united voice to tell our leaders what to do. Earth
Day 2007 will bring together millions of Americans concerned
about global warming to call on our elected officials to take
immediate and effective action to deal with global warming.”
Those
interested in joining the effort can do so by first participating
in one of the Step It Up rallies taking place around the nation
on April 14 (an event locator can be found at the group’s
website)--or by organizing a local event. Participants are
encouraged to “show their green colors” by foregoing
car travel that day and “hiking, biking, climbing, walking,
swimming, kayaking or canoeing” to a rally near them.
Following
the April 14 rallies, individuals can join Earth Day Network’s
week-long lobbying effort in Washington—or participate
virtually over the Internet by first completing an online
form at the group’s website. The Earth Day Network website
also offers an Earth Day event locator for those wishing to
attend an event.
Earth
Day 2007 is the kick-off to a three-year “Climate Change
Solutions Campaign” intended to educate and motivate
all levels of the global community, including K-12 and college
students, governments, corporations and religious institutions.
Earth Day Network is making available an “Earth Day
in a Box” kit, which includes an organizers guide for
those seeking to plan an event, as well as tips, ideas and
resources on various simple actions individuals can take that
can make a difference for the environment.
CONTACTS:
Earth Day Network, www.earthday.net;
Step It Up 2007, www.stepitup2007.org.
Dear EarthTalk:
Have “green” or “socially responsible”
investments performed better or worse than the rest of the
stock market in recent years? -- Ruby Romano, San Francisco,
CA
It might be helpful
to first define “socially responsible.” KLD Research
& Analytics, a leading research firm that helps investors
and investment professionals integrate environmental and social
factors into their investment decisions, established the Domini
400 Social Index in 1990. The Index is a roster of public
companies deemed by KLD to have positive records on numerous
counts: the environment, human rights, product performance
and safety, community and employee relations, diversity and
corporate governance.
Contrary to popular
belief, socially responsible investment and mutual funds,
known collectively in the industry as “SRI” funds,
have historically generated similar if not slightly higher
returns than traditional funds. This fact is borne out by
the performance of the Domini Index, which has generated a
12.17 percent return since inception. By comparison, the Standard
and Poor’s S&P 500, a roster of 500 large companies
representing the market as a whole, generated an 11.49 percent
return over the same period.
In fact, the investment
research firm Morningstar awarded one in five SRI funds--twice
as many as the overall fund universe--its coveted five-star
rating for high returns over a three-year period during the
late 1990s. However, from 2004 to 2006 the average SRI fund
has lagged slightly behind the broader market, returning only
8.5 percent versus the S&P 500’s 10.4 percent.
But to say that
SRI funds perform better or worse than others would be misleading,
as they tend to perform about the same as the rest of the
market. “Most serious academic studies I've seen show
that socially responsible investing has been, broadly speaking
and over the long term, at worst a neutral factor for portfolio
performance,” says Progressive Asset Management’s
Phil Kirshman. “Some SRI funds have been wildly successful,
performance-wise, while others have been perfectly miserable,
but that’s the same situation as with non-socially responsible
funds.”
Of course, most
people who seek out SRI funds do so largely for non-financial
reasons, as a way to encourage good social and environmental
practices. “Performance of any investment product will
vary over time,” says Erin Gray of Green Century Funds.
“With environmentally and socially responsible funds,
you enjoy the peace of mind that your results are obtained
by investing in companies that meet standards for their environmental
and social performance…”
Nonetheless, financial
returns do still matter, even to SRI fund managers, and lower
returns in recent years have led some to change strategy and
focus less on screening out the bad and more on including
the good. As such, these funds are putting clients’
money into companies with forward-thinking policies regarding
issues like climate change. “There’s a lot of
evidence that companies that do these things well carry less
risk,” says Joe Keefe, CEO of Pax World Funds, a socially
responsible mutual fund. “We’ve seen what happens
to companies that don’t.”
CONTACTS:
Domini, www.domini.com;
Green Century, www.greencentury.com;
Pax World, www.paxworld.com;
Progressive Asset Management, www.progressive-asset.com. |
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SYNDICATED COLUMN ONLY ON AMERICAJR.COM
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