Green Century Fund Reports its Carbon Footprint
The Green Century Balanced Fund said the results of its carbon footprint analysis showed that the carbon intensity of the fund is two-thirds less than that of the S&P 500 Index.
Trucost performed the analysis, which was based on measuring the tons of carbon emissions per million dollars of revenue of the companies held by the Balanced Fund and those of the companies included in the S&P 500® Index.
"With emissions restrictions pending in the U.S. and internationally, we believe it is in the best interest of our shareholders to recognize and understand the carbon footprint of the Fund's investments," states Green Century Funds President Kristina Curtis. "This information will better inform investment decisions and will strategically enhance our efforts to encourage companies to further measure, report, and reduce their carbon emissions."
The carbon audit also found that the majority of the Balanced Fund's low carbon intensity is attributable to its underweighting or avoidance of the utilities, oil and gas, and basic resources sectors. Being free of fossil-fuel production or manufacturing companies contributed to the relative positive environmental impact of the fund.
The carbon footprint of the fund (126 tons of carbon per million dollars of revenue of each of the fund's portfolio holdings) is almost half the average footprint of 16 other sustainability and socially responsible investing funds (226 tons of carbon per million dollar of revenue of each of those funds' portfolio holdings) analyzed by Trucost.
The methodology of Trucost's carbon audit included calculating the direct and indirect (major supplier) greenhouse gas emissions for each company in the Green Century Balanced Fund portfolio as of April 30, 2009. Each holding's contribution to the emissions profile of the portfolio is then calculated on an equity ownership basis. The carbon footprint of the fund is normalized by its value to produce a measure of carbon intensity. The same analysis was also conducted on the S&P 500® Index for the purposes of comparison.