In my last post, Socially Conscious Mutual Funds with Charles Schwab, I used the tag “Green Leaf” and “Mutual Funds”. Our tags are intended to help you find articles that relate to your individual interests within Green Capitalism. The “Mutual Funds” tag is simple to define. It is intended to be used when investing in mutual funds is discussed in a post.

The “Green Leaf” tag is more complicated. Rob and I discussed a rating formula as a way to direct our content and assist our audience. This discussion occurred over cupcakes and coffee at Cupcake Royale to give you an idea of the mood that surrounded the development of tagging. Susan approved of the rating system during our discourse, but I believe that she was under the impression that we were asking if she liked the cupcakes. She said something like, “Yes!”, “Good”, and “More”. With that kind of stamp of approval, Rob and I dropped the idea into our site.

The rating system is available to us to tag articles. However, we don’t know if a company or mutual fund is clearly “green”. We do however have principles and ideals that lead us to make judgments about the environmental and social components of a mutual fund or companies. This desire to better define how Rob and I make these judgments is part of the reason we started this site. Our goal is to also use our audience’s comments and suggestions as a tool to fine tune what is “green”.

At this time, “Green Leaf” refers to mutual funds and companies that are the most socially conscious in our opinion. The next levels of this Green Ranking descend based on how far the companies or mutual funds stray from our ideals and principles. The ranking is Green, Yellow, Red or Black. As we get more information, gain experience and fine tune this system, some judgments about investments will change. For example, I considered all the funds from my article about SC funds with Charles Schwab to be “Green Leaf”. Discussion and research may allow us to make finer distinctions between mutual funds that are currently labeled as being socially conscious.

We also have a Green Ranking scheme for lifestyle decisions. This system is similar to the Leaf ranking for investments outlined above. Green, Yellow, Red, or Black Bulbs reflect our opinion of how socially and environmentally conscious decisions related to transportation, food, entertainment or work may be. Riding a bicycle to work would be given a “Green Bulb” tag due to the strength of that lifestyle decision. The leaf was a natural symbol for us to use, but the reasoning behind the bulb needs a quick description. We arrived at the bulb based on the benefits of the compact fluorescent light bulb (CFL). We hope you find these tags helpful, but we encourage you to challenge our judgments about green investing and lifestyle decisions. Our audience's comments will assist us developing useful guide for us and for you.