Buena Onda Games sells a line of fun, soft, safe packable toys - mostly that fly - to get kids and grownups moving and having a blast, wherever they are. Safe for indoors and out, the Pocket Disc is the flagship product (an all cotton frisbee alternative). All our products are handmade by the Maya of Guatemala under strict Fair Trade and Green Business practices.

Sustainable Investing Guide shows how to invest fossil-free

Climate change is reshaping our world in big and small ways. From melting icebergs to erratic and extreme weather to changed ocean ecosystems, the repercussions of using fossil fuels are felt here and around the world.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released its State of the Global Climate 2024 Report, which concluded that 2024 marked a peak in the visible effects of human-induced climate change. It was the hottest year in 175 observational years.

Indeed, UN Secretary General António Guterres called climate change a “ticking time bomb.”

Yet, there are reasons for hope. We can limit carbon emissions and have never been better equipped to solve the climate challenge.

But we must act quickly to defuse this time bomb. As Guterres said, “we must do everything we can, everywhere we can, all at once.”

The Green Century Funds and Green America have been leading supporters of fossil fuel free investing for more than a decade. That’s why we updated the Sustainable Investing Guide — to help you determine what is in your investments, align them with your values, and propel your interest in sustainable investing.

It is urgent to act — before our actions can no longer stop the worst effects of climate change. We hope this guide provides you with the requisite information and inspiration to help build a brighter future.

DOWNLOAD THE GUIDE

Green America assumes no legal or financial responsibility for the practices, products, or services of any businesses listed. Please read all materials carefully prior to investing.

Back to Financial Products & Services

Looking for your next step in the world of green finance? The following asset management firms are able to assist higher-net-worth individuals in establishing customized fossil-free portfolios upon request. They may also help you shift the assets of your house of worship, university, or pension plan.

• 1919 Investment Counsel
• Amalgamated Investment Services
• Appleseed Capital
• Arjuna Capital
• Boston Common Asset Management
• Boston Trust Walden
• Calvert Asset Management
• Clean Yield Asset Management
• Earth Equity Advisors
• First Affirmative Financial Network
• Green Alpha Advisors
• Horizon Investment Services
• Impax Asset Management
• Jantz Management LLC
• JPS Global Investments
• Newground Social Investment
• North Sky Capital
• Northstar Asset Management, Inc.
• The Sustainability Group
• Trillium Asset Management
• Veris Wealth Partners
• Vision Capital Investment
• Washington Square Capital Management
• Zevin Asset Management

Green America assumes no legal or financial responsibility for the practices, products, or services of any businesses listed. Please read all materials carefully prior to investing.

Back to Financial Products & Services

Below is a selection of the hundreds of fossil-free mutual funds and exchange-traded funds available for investment. For a full list, visit As You Sow's Fossil Free Funds.

Broad-Based Mutual Funds that Exclude Fossil-Fuel Companies by Policy

Appleseed Fund

The Fund has divested its long positions in fossil-fuel companies in order to pursue a fossil-fuel free investment strategy.

Democratic Large Cap Core ETF

Designed to provide similar risk and performance as the S&P 500 but it only includes companies that have made over 75% of their political contributions to Democratic causes and candidates.

Etho Capital Climate Leadership U.S. ETF

The first diversified, fossil-free, sustainable, and responsible U.S. ETF.

Green Century Balanced Fund

This fund excludes fossil-fuel companies, and in 2009 became the first fund to release a carbon-footprint report of its holdings: 66 percent smaller than the S&P 500.

Green Century Equity Fund

Since April 1, 2014, the Equity Fund is divested of all fossil-fuel companies. The fund already excluded coal and oil companies; Green Century has now screened out natural gas.

Green Century International Index Fund

The first responsible and diversified international index fund (that is fossil fuel-free) that invests in companies chosen for their outstanding environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings in 22 developed countries.

Parnassus Mutual Funds

These funds avoid companies engaged in the production, manufacturing, or refining of fossil fuels.

Green Alpha Investment Portfolios

Green Alpha Advisors believes that fossil fuels disrupt the economy and its underlying ecosystems, do not represent solutions, and have no place in Green Alpha portfolios.

Sphere 500 Climate Fund

Low-fee index fund that invests in the top 500 biggest US companies, minus fossil fuels, and votes its shares in the remaining companies to encourage climate action.

Trillium ESG Core Equity

Invests across the range of market capitalizations and economic sectors in companies that meet Trillium’s sustainability criteria. This strategy has no direct exposure to fossil fuels.

Clean Energy Mutual Funds

Impax Global Environmental Markets Fund

While excluding fossil fuels, this fund also invests in clean energy and energy efficiency, pollution control, waste management, and water infrastructure.

Invesco Sustainable ETFs

Sustainability focused investors can choose ETFs that reflect their values and help to make an impact in key areas, such as solar power, clean energy, water scarcity, or green building efficiency.

Community Development Mutual Funds (Fossil-Free)

Access Capital Community Investment Fund

Because of this fund’s focus on community investing, it is not invested in fossil fuel companies.

CCM Community Impact Bond Fund

The CRA Fund focuses on community development, including affordable housing, job creation, and redevelopment of blighted communities.

Green America assumes no legal or financial responsibility for the practices, products, or services of any businesses listed. Please read all materials carefully prior to investing.

Back to Financial Products & Services

Where you put your money can change the world. Learn more about these socially responsible financial planners and investment consultants:

AIO Financial Link

AIO Financial is a fee-only financial planning firm that specializes in Socially Responsible Investing (SRI). SRI is an investment strategy seeking to maximize both financial return and social good. AIO Financial can address many issues, including climate change, thorough investment screening (fossil fuel-free investing), shareholder advocacy, and community investment.

Amalgamated Investment Services

Amalgamated Investment Services (AIS) is a division of Amalgamated Bank -- America’s socially responsible bank and a Certified B-Corp public benefit corporation. Our mission is to drive positive change in the world by aligning our client’s investments with their values. To accomplish this, we offer full-service wealth management including both negative/positive ESG screening and impact investing. Our proprietary 100% Fossil Fuel Free Portfolios are completely divested from the fossil fuel industry while seeking to mitigate climate change, as well as promote environmental sustainability, gender equality, and social and racial justice. Please see complete disclosures on our website.

Capital Intelligence Associates

Capital Intelligence Associates is a Southern California-based full-service financial planning firm specializing in multi-generational wealth management, philanthropic planning, and socially responsible investing. They can develop fossil fuel-free portfolios for both individual and institutional clients.

Carbon Collective Investing

Carbon Collective Investing is an online investment advisor that creates sustainable investment portfolios that divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in climate solutions. We tend to be a good fit for investors who need help rolling over an old 401k from a past employer into a climate friendly portfolio, and include people doing mission driven work in climatetech, policy advocacy, and just making our world better. To find out more, visit carboncollective.co

Effective Assets

Specializing in Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) for over 29 years, Effective Assets provides goal-oriented, fee-based financial planning to individuals, families, and business owners. Our services include values-based retirement and life planning, SRI and fossil-fuel free portfolio management, and investment consulting to non-profits and social enterprises.

Encore Wealth Advisors

Encore Wealth Advisors is helping to solve the climate crisis by supporting individuals, families, non-profits and small businesses in divesting of fossil fuel investments. They accomplish this by offering a values based wealth management process, utilizing fossil-free investment portfolios, that helps clients achieve their financial, social and environmental goals.

First Affirmative Financial Network

With 25 years of experience serving Green America members with their social investing needs, First Affirmative and its nationwide network of 100 associated advisors can develop fossil-free portfolios using mutual funds, exchange traded funds, and individual securities as appropriate to your needs.

Greenvest

Greenvest’s commitment to environmentally responsible investing for our clients naturally extends to creating fossil fuel-free portfolios. We are also dedicated to providing true personal investment counseling in an age of increasingly mechanized investing, and to serving the financial needs of the 99%.

Hansen’s Advisory Services, Inc.

Hansen’s Advisory Services, Inc. (HAS) works with clients who wish to invest their money in a way that can create a world in which we all prosper. We are involved in presenting workshops on Fossil Free Funds, along with Nuclear Free funds and the “Don’t Bank on the Bomb” program for a nuclear free world.

Horizons Sustainable Financial Services

Horizons Sustainable Financial Services offers a line of well diversified, zero-carbon energy mutual fund portfolios with no exposure to any companies directly involved in the production of fossil fuels. The portfolios are built on a “sustainable, responsible, impact” (“SRI”) investing foundation, using mutual funds from SRI industry leaders.

Longwave Financial

All too often, numbers on a page feel too disconnected from our day-to-day lives. It’s hard to know what the right decisions are and how to make them. That’s why our team sits at the center of your financial life, helping you coordinate all the details so you feel confident and known. At Longwave, your future is never left to guesswork. Our financial planning process is a framework to help you better understand your entire financial picture and bring your future into focus. We're empowered with the freedom to work openly and help interested clients pursue impact investing opportunities or learn how to invest ethically. Ultimately, we're able to work collaboratively to understand your needs and help you reach your goals.

Natural Investments

Natural Investments, a B Corp and public benefit corporation owned by a purpose trust, is a network of 20+ investment advisors across 10 states serving investors nationwide with an exclusive focus on sustainable, responsible, and impact investments since 1985. For over 30 years their Heart Rating, featured on their website, has rated SRI funds on the breadth and depth of their environmental, social, and governance, shareholder engagement, and community investing criteria. They have offered fossil fuel-free investment portfolios since 2012 and support racial and gender equity, community development, and regenerative ecological investing in both public and private markets. Thought leaders in the field, they have published three books since 1992, including "The Resilient Investor: A Plan for Your Life, Not Just Your Money."

Newground Social Investment

For over 30 years, Newground has focused exclusively on ESG-investing for families and non-profits, and supplements with direct corporate engagements using clients’ stocks to help keep corporations accountable to all stakeholders. By “Connecting Money with What Matters,” Newground offers well diversified, fossil fuel-free portfolios that support your values and mission in the world. Both mutual fund and highly customizable separate account management portfolios using stocks, bonds, and alternative investments are available, in addition to private impact investing for accredited investors. Our goal is to help humanize the face of wealth management. Please see our website for additional information on our client-focused planning approach.

Pekin Hardy Strauss Wealth Management

Pekin Hardy Strauss Wealth Management has been helping clients reach their goals since 1990. Over the years, we have helped our clients navigate through several challenging market environments. We have learned through experience to think deeply about wealth management through market cycles, to make adjustments as a cycle matures, and to protect capital during down markets. We help individuals and families customize their portfolios to support their social and environmental principles, excluding firms or industries that don’t align with their values and seeking out new investments with positive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) characteristics through our rigorous investment process.

Progressive Asset Managements, Inc.

Since 1987 PAM Inc has been providing social screening to members of the PAM Group, the socially responsible division of Financial West Group. Advisors in the PAM Group can create a fossil-free portfolio utilizing stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs to meet the needs of any client.

Quantum Financial Planning, LLC

Providing hourly, fee-only financial planning since 2005. Quantum Financial Planning can assist investors interested in fossil-free investing using methodology based on the book Low Fee Socially Responsible Investing, Investing in Your Worldview on your Terms, published by Tom Nowak in 2012.

SRI Wealth Management Group of RBC Wealth Management

The SRI Wealth Management Group of RBC Wealth Management provides customized investment solutions that help clients achieve financial and value-based objectives. With $1.3 billion AUM, SRI Wealth Management Group works with investors to implement client-specific Environmental, Social, Governance and Impact preferences throughout their asset allocation. RBC Wealth Management, a division of RBC Capital Markets, LLC, Member NYSE/FINRA/SIPC.

Stakeholders Capital

Stakeholders Capital is a full service wealth management firm committed to integrating their clients’ values with their financial goals. Stakeholders Capital is proud to be a leader in sustainable, community and impact investing.

Sustainable Wealth Advisors/Sustainable Advisors Alliance, LLC

Sustainable Wealth Advisors (SWA) is an investment management and financial planning firm based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. Harry Moran is SWA’s founder and has been providing financial guidance to environmentally and socially conscious investors for over 30 years. Harry has specialized in designing highly customized fossil-free solutions for individual and institutional clients since 2001. In 2021, he became a founding member of Sustainable Advisors Alliance LLC, and is now part of a national network of dedicated financial professionals who share his passion for environmental sustainability and social justice. Harry has been a frequent contributor and speaker on a variety of impact investing topics and is proud to be helping support the work of the statewide Divest NY coalition.

Vision Capital Investment Management

The president of Vision Capital Investment Management, David Kim, has been working with socially responsible investing since 1983 when he co-founded Working Assets. Vision Capital Investment Management works to align personal values with financial goals using portfolios customized for each client's social and financial criteria. Investment strategies include fossil-fuel free, clean energy, non-GMO, natural processes, and community investing. Their focus is to provide competitive financial return, highly personalized client relationships, to help clients create positive social change, and to practice with a high standard of ethics.

Green America assumes no legal or financial responsibility for the practices, products, or services of any businesses listed. Please read all materials carefully prior to investing.

Back to Financial Products & Services

Title: Donor Services, Operations and Database Manager
Reports to: Director of Membership Marketing and Operations (MM&O)

Benefits: Excellent Benefits package

Status: Full Time 4-day 32 hours, compensation $52,000-$55,000

Green America is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating a socially just and environmentally sustainable society by harnessing economic power for positive change. Our unique approach involves working with consumers, investors, and businesses. Our workplace reflects our goal of creating a more cooperative, environmentally sound economy. We have a participatory decision-making process that aims to build consensus within the departments and teams.

Our Membership Marketing and Operations team uses mission-focused communications to engage our membership — 'one to many' requests of support. Members serve two key functions for Green America. First, our members are the vehicles of our social change work. Second, they are the people who provide one of the largest portions of revenue for Green America’s operating budget. To keep our members happy, we provide prompt and personalized assistance everyone that contacts us directly.

Duties and Responsibilities:

Donor Services Management (25%):

• Oversee Member Services Assistant
• Oversee the mail, phone, and email response system to member inquiries, from address changes to publication sales.
• Coordinate and produce mail and data files for Green America publications.
• Work with Member Services Assistant and Marketing Manager to coordinate renewal and acknowledgements data file generation and mailings.
• Coordinate with Director of Marketing to send monthly email renewals.
• Manage post office BRM accounts.

Recurring Gift Processing (25%):

• This position is responsible for meeting annual revenue projections.
• Process recurring (monthly, quarterly, annual) payments and manage the recurring processes: data entry, reporting, recapture, and refunds
• Create annual budget projections for ongoing recurring processing.
• Work with member services to meet recapture budget projections.
• Create new systems and offers, to increase recapture.
• Coordinate with Accounting to send summary of monthly revenues.

Operations & Data Entry Management (35%):

• Oversee Data Entry Specialist.
• Manage data entry systems and processes to ensure data integrity & hygiene, streamline processes, research new systems, and solve problems as they arise.
• Manage relationship and coordinate with our data caging company.
• Oversee credit card and debit card processing.
• Coordinate with IT department to ensure timely modifications and updates to, Raiser’s Edge, and other resources.

Constituent Relationship Management Systems Management (15%):

• Create and provide reports and data files to different departments in the organization, including Marketing, Development, and Accounting/Finance
• Responsible for data integrity, processes and procedures of Raiser’s Edge, Green America’s membership information system.
• Responsible for data integrity, processes and procedures of Charity Engine, Green America’s transactions website.
• Work with Accounting to provide reports for year end closing and final financial reports.
• Work with Director MM&O and Director of Development to provide reports and data files for the organization’s annual planning process.
• Work with Accounting to provide reports and data files for annual audit and taxes.
• Provide data assistance for state registration process.
• Update Salsa with constituent information from the Raiser’s Edge.
• Support of legacy systems, as needed, until they are phased out (Enterhost, SQL Server)

Miscellaneous

• Support the Director of MM&O in administrative duties related to contract management, hiring, budgeting and operational functions as needed.
• Review and process vendor invoices and ensure complete information has been provided
• Oversee office supplies, kitchen, and copier paper orders.
• Back up for front phone coverage.
• Other duties as assigned.

List of Systems this position will manage:

1. Raiser’s Edge Membership System
2. Charity Engine (web transactions)
3. Authorize.Net Credit Card System
4. Beneficial State Bank ACH Software
5. Blackbaud Merchant Services (BBMS)
6. PC Charge Credit Card System

Qualified Candidates should have:

• Minimum of 5 years work experience in non-profit setting
• Minimum of 3 years managing data entry and/or member services staff
• Customer-service mindset and strong interpersonal skills
• Candidate must demonstrate solid critical thinking skills and experience in collaborating with cross-department teams to achieve common goals
• Exceptional problem solving skills and outstanding attention to detail
• Excellent organizational skills, ability to prioritize various important requests
• Ability to communicate effectively with vendors, consultants, and staff and ensure deadlines are met.
• Proficiency in: Raiser’s Edge, Crystal Reports
• Preferred: SQL Server Querying, Charity Engine, Authorize.net, B.S. in Computer Science or an IT-related field

Coming soon.

Online and digital consulting.

This year, spending on Halloween is expected to reach an average of $86.13 per person, up from $82.93 last year, according to the National Retail Federation’s annual survey on Halloween.

The Halloween spending stats

Halloween was originally a festival that marked the end of harvest, and was a time of sharing with the dead as they crossed over into the other world. It has been a way to recognize and play with death, but over the last 50 to 60 years, U.S.-based candy companies promoted the idea that trick-or-treating shouldn’t be rewarded with coins, nuts, fruit or toys, but with chocolates and other candy.

The National Retail Federation survey talked to 7,013 consumers in September about their plans for this year. It forecasts a total spend of $9.1 billion, with that spending including:

• $3.4 billion on costumes
• Of that, $440 million on pet costumes (2017 figure, Statista)
• $2.7 billion on candy
• $2.7 billion on decorations
• $410 million on greeting cards
• $300 million on haunted attractions (2016 figure)

In addition, the top 10 advertisers spent $29.2 million in 2014 on advertising for Halloween, with Walmart topping the list, spending nearly $5 million.

Beyond the spending, 48 percent of adults plan to dress up, with witches, Batman and animal costumes among the most popular choices. Superheroes were at the top of the list for children, and hot dogs and pumpkins for pets. Some 71 percent plan to hand out candy, 49 percent will decorate their home or yard, 46 percent will carve a pumpkin and 16 percent will dress pets in costumes.

Some of the most profitable categories, according to retailers, are home decor and accessories. This could be because people spend time and money on outdoing their neighbors, one participant in the 2016 survey of businesses said.

Further, the haunted house industry, according to a Statista analysis, has been “embraced by Corporate America” with millions being spent on sponsorship deals with soft drink, fast food and cell phone brands.

Other ways Halloween money could be spent

Here at The Alternative Daily, we crunched the numbers to work out how this Halloween money could have been spent:

• The money spent on costumes could send 98,209 students to college for four years each (average in-state college tuition is $34,620 for four years).
• The money spent on candy would provide 1.5 million homeless and extremely poor people with three hot meals every day for a year (Feeding The Homeless says meals cost $1.60 per person. That completely covers the total national homeless population of 564,708 people, as well as an extra 1 million people living in extreme poverty.)
• The money spent on decorations could provide at least 4.5 million women with free birth control pills for a year (the pill costs up to $600 per year).
• The money spent on greeting cards could reforest the U.S. (at an average of $100per acre to prepare the site, $70 per acre to replant or reseed, 2.4 million acres of land could be reforested. The National Forest Foundation says at least 1 million acres of land in the U.S. need reforestation).
• The money spent on haunted attractions could make condoms free for a year (450 million condoms are sold annually in the U.S., at average cost of $0.45 per condom — for a total spend of $202 million).

So, added all up, the money being spent on Halloween paraphernalia could instead put some people through college, feed the homeless, make contraception more affordable and reforest the country.

Does your Halloween costume contain toxins?

Halloween costumes are often made from plastics that contain toxins. Beyond the way money is spent, there are also issues with the way Halloween goods are produced. The Alternative Daily talked to Todd Larsen, a director with Green America, who stressed that the costumes and decorations are often made from plastics derived from petroleum “and can contain many toxins.”

“Since these costumes and decorations are often thrown away after one use, they end up in landfills, where they break down slowly, leaching toxins. Plastics also end up in waterways and harm a wide variety of wildlife,” he said.

Consumerism has consequences on your happiness

Casey Williams, a director of New Dream, an organization focused on transforming consumption habits for the wellbeing of people and planet, also talked to AD, and warned that these high spending levels and the general “accumulation of stuff” is having significant consequences for not just the environment, but also on “our own health and happiness.

“Advertising campaigns are telling us that more stuff will make us happier, smarter or more loved, even though the research suggests otherwise,” Williams said. In fact, “evidence suggests that once basic needs are met, further consumption doesn’t do much to increase happiness. It may even decrease it.”

Indeed, studies have found a direct correlation between materialism and being susceptible to mental health disorders. People who consume more also see a decrease in well-being, which includes things like sense of purpose, autonomy and good interpersonal relationships. A controlled study published in Psychological Sciencealso found that people who repeatedly see advertising that portrays them as consumers rather than citizens experience immediate increases in anxiety and depression and become more selfish.

“Consumption is the “norm” in American society… we have transitioned from a society that values savings and thrift to one that increasingly relies on debt and credit,” Williams said. She cited retail analyst Victor Lebow, who in an influential paper published as early as 1955, stated, “Our enormously productive economy demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfactions, our ego satisfactions, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced and discarded at an ever-increasing pace.”

Halloween goods are manufactured in sweatshops

Costumes and decor are made overseas in sweatshops. The manufacturing process of many Halloween goods also comes with its own price, as “costumes and décor are generally manufactured overseas in sweatshops with long hours and with workers frequently exposed to toxins. Chocolate mostly comes from cocoa farms in West Africa, where farmers are paid far less than a living wage, and many children toil on farms instead of attending school,” Larsen pointed out.

Other ways to celebrate Halloween

As Larsen noted, people are becoming increasingly pressed for time, and often aren’t able to make their own costumes or decorations. However, he suggests that where possible, it’s important that people take up the challenge to make costumes and decorations from materials around the house. It’s “an opportunity to use our creativity… and time spent with family or friends.”

“You can also work with your neighbors to create a costume swap. Everyone brings old costumes and puts them out on tables organized by age group or size. Then, people pick a new costume and go home with it for Halloween,” he suggested.

Larsen believes it’s important to aim for fair trade chocolate, which pays farmers a dignified wage, and his organization recommends this list of other green treats.

Williams and New Dream stress the importance of reusing decorations, and making them out of materials like corn husks, gourds and straw bales.

For Halloween and the upcoming holiday seasons, New Dreams is also promoting a resource called the GiveLIst, which is the opposite of a traditional registry. Here, adults and children can register their home-made creations, and make them available for others to choose from.

Finally, Global Exchange in the past has promoted the idea of reverse trick-or-treating, where children give out fair trade chocolate along with information sheets, instead of asking for candy.

How are you making Halloween meaningful?

— Tamara Pearson

The Alternative Daily shares alternative health news on stress, sleep, alternative diets with a newsletter and health eBooks.