Green America and the certified Green Business Network members mentioned in this article, which meet or exceed Green America’s standards for social and environmental responsibility, are here to help. 

If you want to

• Get problematic industries like tobacco, fossil fuels, weapons, and others out of your portfolio.
• Invest in forward-thinking companies on the cutting edge of green technologies, like renewable energy, water purification, and responsible waste management.

Try Screening

What is it?

• Screening is making the choice to include or exclude investments in your portfolio based on social and environmental criteria.
• Avoidance screens mean that investments that violate your social and environmental criteria are kept out of your portfolio.
• Affirmative screens seek out investments that support business practices that work to advance a more just and sustainable world.

Scale

As of December 2022, U.S. investors have put $8.4 trillion into vehicles managed with sustainable investing strategies. This represents 1 in 8 dollars of total U.S. assets under professional management, according to the Forum for Sustainable and Responsible Investing, or US SIF.

Get Started

Do research and screen your own investments or hire a socially responsible financial advisor to help you.

“The very act of buying a portfolio that’s more consistent with goals of universal human dignity and ecological sustainability changes the conversation. It expands the mission of companies. 120-plus global stock exchanges have joined the Sustainable Stock Exchanges Initiative, which means that over 60,000 companies now attempt to track their impact on people and the planet. Those things never would have happened had just Wall Street been their shareholders.”

—Amy Domini,
Domini Social Investments

If you want to

• Use your investor power to pressure irresponsible corporations to clean up their acts.

Try Shareholder Activism

What is it?

• Shareholder activism/advocacy describes the actions many investors take to press corporations to improve their environmental, social, and governance (ESG) practices—using their status as part-owners of companies as leverage.
• Shareholders, generally in coalition, may start out by dialoguing behind the scenes with corporate management to ask for change.
• If dialogues don’t work, shareholders may introduce a shareholder resolution, which is a formal request to corporate management to change company policies or procedures. All shareholders may vote on shareholder resolutions through a proxy ballot mailed or emailed to them, or in person at a company’s annual meeting.

Scale

Investors controlling $3 trillion in assets filed or co-filed shareholder resolutions on ESG issues at publicly traded companies from 2020 through 2022, according to the 2022 Report on Sustainable, Responsible and Impact Investing Trends produced by US SIF. Investors have filed over 542 environmental, social, and governance resolutions the 2023 shareholder season, according to Proxy Preview, a comprehensive database published by As You Sow, Sustainable Investments Institute, and Proxy Impact.

Get Started

If you own stock, look for a shareholder ballot to arrive in the mail in the spring, and vote in favor of social and environmental proposals. Every year, Green America rounds up the key issues on shareholder resolutions for your knowledge.

“Through dialogue, shareholder proposals, and other channels of communication, investors serve as an important catalyst for strengthening ESG policies, practices, and performance, as well as improving corporate social and environmental impacts.”

—Jonas Kron,
Trillium Asset Management

If you want to

• Put your money to work by helping to give people the resources they need to succeed.
• Move your money away from predatory megabanks that heavily fund fossil fuels, and toward institutions that are doing good, especially in communities that have been economically marginalized and underserved due to discriminatory policies and practices.

Try Community Investing

What is it?

• The simplest method is to open accounts in a community development bank/credit union.
• Community-investing vehicles maximize the social impact of your investments, providing capital to people in the US and abroad who are under-served by conventional banks.
• Other options include CDs and money-market accounts in a community-investing bank or credit union, community-investing loan funds and venture capital, and mutual funds with community investments in their portfolios.

Scale

Thanks in part to Green America and US SIF’s publicity campaigns, the community investing field has grown from $5 billion in 1999 to $458 billion currently, according to the US SIF 2022 Trends Report. This sector has experienced rapid growth especially in recent years, growing over 1000% in the last 12 years (from $41.7 billion in 2010).

Get Started

Find a community investing bank, credit union, or loan fund in Green America’s Get a Better Bank Database.

“Mission-driven financial institutions like HOPE offer a tremendous return on investment. Over the course of nearly three decades, HOPE has generated $3.7 billion in financing that has improved conditions for more than 2.6 million people across the Deep South. When historically under-resourced people have the right tools, families and communities thrive, and the entire nation benefits.”

—Bill Bynum,
Hope Credit Union

If you want to

• Send a message to an entire industry that it’s not sustainable.

Try Divestment

What is it?

• Divestment means pulling all of your money out of a particular investment or industry.
• The goal is to send a market signal to a company, industry, or government that its actions are not sustainable or acceptable, and their investors and customers want them to change course.

Scale

As of April 2023, 1,560 institutions representing over $40.51 trillion in assets have made a fossil-fuel divestment commitment, according to the Stand.Earth Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Commitments Database.

These include faith-based organizations, educational institutions, philanthropic foundations, pension funds, governments, for-profit corporations, and more.

Investors have divested $4.8 billion from private prisons as of 2019, according to Freedom to Thrive.

Get Started

Join the Fossil Fuel Divest/Invest campaign and pull your money out of the top 200 fossil fuel companies. A good financial planner can help. You can also check As You Sow’s Invest Your Values to find out if your mutual funds or ETFs are invested in a problematic industry, and to find top-scoring funds.

“Divestment is a powerful strategy, used after other strategies have not achieved the change needed. By pulling assets out of a country, industry, or company, investors declare that entity a pariah, and acutely raise the stakes for the continuation of the unacceptable conduct or policy. Divestment shines a spotlight on an issue that can no longer be ignored, intensifying the pressure for change.”

—Fran Teplitz,
Green America executive co-director 2000-2023