Calvert Investments, one of the earliest and best known mutual fund families that chooses investments based on social and environmental criteria, has launched a Green Bond Fund.
Calvert Green Bond Fund (CGAFX) is one of the few vehicles for socially-minded fixed-income investors. It will primarily invest in bonds that provide solutions to climate change and other environmental sustainability issues.
Corporate holdings in the fund must derive at least half their revenues from environmentally beneficial technologies or services. Calvert will also invest in project bonds that further sustainability, such as smart growth, mass transit, energy efficiency, pollution prevention and green real estate.
"The Fund is designed to capture the investment opportunity from the trillions needed in new capital to address key global sustainability challenges," says Mauricio Agudelo, co-Portfolio Manager of the fund.
"This strategy is aimed at solving some of today’s most pressing environment and sustainability challenges, like climate change and water, which are very important to us," notes Bennett Freeman, Senior Vice President for Sustainability Research and Policy at Calvert.
About $3 billion in Green Bonds have been issued recently and oversubscribed by Calvert and other green-oriented institutional investors. For example, Morocco’s Ouarzazate 1 – the world’s largest concentrating solar plant, which is under construction – is being financed by green bonds along with other development bank sources.
This is a great way for the average person to hold shares in Green Bonds – the only other vehicle we’re aware of is "High Quality Green Bonds" from State Street Global Advisors.