Helen Chang

By Helen Kaiao Chang

See original story on PlentyMag.com

For many Americans, April 15 now marks the end of a mad scramble to file tax papers and max out a Roth IRA account. One upside to that frenzy is that you can invest in your values while making money for retirement. Green funds have started to take off, sometimes even outstripping the benchmark Standard & Poor’s 500 index in 2007. Falling under the broad category of socially responsible investments, such funds include stocks of companies involved in environmentally sustainable products, services, and practices.
One caveat: Green funds can be volatile, dropping or gaining as much as 40 percent a month. If you want to mitigate that risk, you might choose broader-based funds, such as Sierra Club Stock Fund (SCFSX) and Claymore LGA Green (GRN), which include environmentally questionable but blue-chip companies such as Las Vegas Sands Casinos and Exxon Mobil. If you’re interested in purer plays, here are ten top-performing green and alternative energy funds, measured against the S&P 500.

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