In 1991, working on the business side of a major Spokane hospital, he discovered his pension plan was laden with tobacco stocks. He brought it up to the financial manager, who said it was a bottom-line decision. Feigenbaum did tell a friend who worked as a nurse there. Realizing a lot of people were in his situation, needing to know where to ethically invest their money, Feigenbaum in 1992 started Greenmoney Journal, which he still runs out of his house. Feigenbaum also consults directly with investment firms on designing social responsibility screens, and with businesses on improving their ethical bottom lines.
Some funds screen their investments more thoroughly than others.
Around half of the top 1,000 publicly traded U.S. companies meet most standard social investment criteria. So people with more rigorous standards might want to pick a higher-rated fund. The journal also details how the funds are performing. He acknowledges there have been some performance issues recently, depending on the mutual fund. The top social fund, Green Century's Balanced Fund, returned 25 percent in 1996.