Green and Good? The Investment Performance of US Environmental Mutual Funds

Abstract

Increased concern for the environment has increased the number of investment opportunities in mutual funds specialized in promoting responsible environmental attitudes. This paper examines the performance and risk sensitivities of US green mutual funds vis-à-vis their conventional peers. We also analyze and compare this performance relative to other Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) mutual funds. In order to implement this analysis, we apply a CAPM-based methodology and find that in the 1987-2009 period, environmental funds had lower performance than conventional funds with similar characteristics. However, if we focus on a more recent period (2001- 2009), green funds achieved adjusted returns not significantly different from the rest of SRI and conventional mutual funds.