Ethical Investing: How Green Is Your Money?

Amy Domini is a capitalist tool from a different mold. "Making money," says the mutual-fund mogul, "is different from stealing money." Companies that manufacture cigarettes, pollute rivers or sell sweatshop goods are robbing from the public welfare, as she sees it. Capital is the tool Domini uses to knock them over the head.

A Boston University grad who started as a photocopy clerk at a brokerage, Domini, 50, manages $1.17 billion in private portfolios as well as her $1.89 billion Domini Social Equity Funds, the oldest and biggest socially and environmentally screened index funds in the U.S. Domini does not just exclude "booze, butts and bets"--alcohol, tobacco and gambling stocks. She also files shareholder resolutions and haggles with Walt Disney for better working conditions overseas or with Coca-Cola for more recycling. "Global companies are more powerful than governments," she says. "The way we invest creates the world we live in."

Domini did not invent socially responsible investing. Shareholder activism grew up during the Vietnam War and the anti-apartheid struggle. Today some 150 mutual funds screen out politically incorrect companies. But more than anyone, Domini made ethical investing a mass-market option. Ten years ago, with two partners, she set up the Domini 400 Social Index, a benchmark for responsible portfolios. Its companies must pass muster on 140 issues, ranging from toxic-waste fines to diversity in top management. Yet Domini has kept pace with the S&P 500--a feat managed by fewer than a third of other mutual funds.

"Before, people would just carve out evil companies," says John Biggs, head of TIAA-CREF, the pension-fund giant, which launched its own social fund. "Amy brings investment discipline with social concerns." Domini's latest crusade: persuading the $7 trillion U.S. mutual-fund industry to post shareholder-resolution votes on its websites. "It's outrageous that managers are not telling investors how they vote," says Domini. "The small investor wants to fatten her wallet, but she also wants to breathe clean air and work in a safe environment."

--By Margot Roosevelt