Making Your Portfolio Sudan-free

Momentum is growing among public pension plans to divest from companies with ties to the government of Sudan. Lest anyone is unaware of the dire situation, hundreds of thousands of people have been slaughtered and millions have been displaced as Arab militias have terrorized the Darfur region of Sudan. Under the cloak of nationalism, the terrorist thugs in charge are really just trying to gain control of what could be oil rich lands. Genocide on this scale has not been seen since Rwanda in the mid-1990s.

Mobilization for divestment among the public investment community has not been seen since Apartheid. In Illinois, lawmakers passed a bill requiring any money manager involved in the 15 pension funds (accounting for $192 billion) to use a Sudan screen. Likewise, managers of the University of California endowment have begun divesting thanks to some student protests. Calpers, the huge California public employees pension, is following suit.

Stepping up to the plate, research firms KLD and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) created screens and information on the publicly held companies involved. Although I am prohibited from republishing the results, KLD is tracking 130 companies while ISS is tracking 167. Eleven of these are in the S&P 500. Forbes magazine gave us a glimpse:

• Marathon Oil (NYSE:MRO)
• Schlumberger (NYSE:SLB)
• Xerox (NYSE:XRX)
• Eastman Kodak (NYSE: EK)
• 3M (NYSE: MMM)

The Forbes article gives you the reasons these companies are on the list, though it is behind a members-only area.

Xerox provides evidence that divestment is having an effect. Thanks to the specter of a divestment sell-off, Xerox is terminating a distribution agreement.

Now for the shameless plug. First Sustainable has the tools to sanitize your portfolio of these Sudan-tainted companies. We help customers create their own index, called a folio, which can be traded commission free.

Lying Down with Dogs, Waking Up with Fleas
Human Rights Activist Shows Evidence of Tech Firms' Complicity with China's PSB

In dramatic testimony to congress, representatives from Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Cisco (CSCO), and Microsoft (MSFT) were hauled before congress to explain complicity with Chinese censoring practices. Uniformly, the companies expressed revulsion at the idea of cooperating with Chinese authorities but said it was necessary nonetheless to get a foothold in the world's largest market. Google's line of reasoning: some freedom is better than none. Cisco's: They sell the same routers in China as they do everywhere else and they can't be held responsible for how it is used.

Shortly after this display, human rights activists were allowed to counter. Harry Wu, Chinese dissident and torture survivor, showed particularly damning evidence that while Cisco's routers were the same, they are marketed and implemented differently. Most large scale deployments of communications infrastructure come with either paid-for or built-in training from the company that sold it. Holding up a Cisco-copyrighted publication on how to train the Chinese police, Wu likened Cisco's actions to giving them a pistol.

The question is more than academic. China employs tens of thousands of internet police, and has imprisoned tens of thousands of internet dissidents. It is safe to assume that some of them were either executed, tortured, or "re-educated" through hard labor. Wu relayed a story of how a friend accessed prohibited sites from an internet cafe, and was arrested when the police showed up within minutes. That kind of technology is only available thanks to American ingenuity.

Stateside, the actions could and should constitute a violation of US law. Legislation enacted after the Tiananmen Square incident prohibits American companies from selling crime control equipment to the Chinese. Wu testified that a US manufacturer of handcuffs is prohibited from selling to the Chinese government, but that hardware and software deployed to censor and track its citizens for the purpose of quelling dissident behavior has so far escaped the definition of crime control equipment.

History shows us that technology does not exist in a vacuum. How technology is used is more important than the technology itself. IBM punchcard technology helped Nazi Germany raise its extermination of Jews to industrial scale. The rifle helped Britain subjugate native people in Africa. More recently, P2P software has aided and abetted the widespread theft of copyrighted music. Technology vendors must take it upon themselves to at least attempt to prevent technology's use from being used for evil purposes.

These companies want us to believe that they can either comply with government requests or not do business at all. As was stated by the congressional panel and human rights activists, they can always negotiate. The Chinese need US technology. Homegrown technology is nowhere near the level of its US counterparts. They can and should negotiate from a position of strength.

Ten Tips for No-Nonsense Socially Responsible Investing, Part 2

Continuing on the theme from yesterday's posts, here are tips six through ten.

6. One percent in community investments makes a huge difference. If you are buying a CD, buy one from a local bank, so that your money stays in the community. Preferably, buy the CD from a community development bank that makes loans to underserved communities. Heck, it's all federally insured.
7. Investments in Eco-efficiency pay off huge. For commercial building owners, every dollar saved in energy expenditures equates to about six dollars in appraised value, if you go by cap rate valuation. For homeowners, $1 saved in operating costs equates to about $20 in appraised value. This is according to Fannie Mae, which is falling over itself to lend money to homeowners who are willing to invest in efficiency improvements.
8. Costs can be controlled, returns can not. Ok, this is an echo of Clements' column. The average mutual fund charges 1.57 percent in expenses every year. If you go with the low cost options charging less than .5 percent, the one percent difference will result in a six-figure difference over 30 years. Meanwhile, diversification and asset allocation are the keys to minimizing the downswings of the market.
9. Socially Responsible Investing is not a fad... unless you make it so. Although the 60's generation would like to claim it, people have been making choices to not let their money enable injustice in the world for thousands of years. It's in the religious texts of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. However, it is now easier than ever to accomplish thanks to focused research, institutional will, and communications technologies that spread ideas. That said, even an SRI portfolio that is not sufficiently diversified can crater. For example, don't concentrate your portfolio in clean energy technologies, climate technologies, or green building technologies. Those fields can, and probably will, result in a bubble some day.
10. Have a plan. This, too, is no different than our non-SRI brethren. Just as in any journey, you have to know where you are and where you want to go before you can get there. To sound a little less like Tony Robbins, you need a strategy in place that takes into account where you are now, for what you want to save, how long you have, and the shortest journey to get there. I am consistently shocked and amazed at how many people take a cavalier, do-it-yourself attitude with their long term finances while at the same time, spending days on end comparison shopping buy a refrigerator.

Ten Tips for No-Nonsense Socially Responsible Investing, Part 1

Jonathan Clements' column in the Wall Street Journal Sunday, "Twenty Tips for No-Nonsense Investing" is indispensable for those who seek to cut through the marketing hooey of the financial services industry and really understand what is essential for investing. Since I am not into plagiarism, I will only provide a hyperlink. However, in honor of the fine piece, I want to add a corollary for socially responsible investors.

1. Being socially responsible means more than calling yourself socially responsible. Over and over again, I have said that my biggest challenge is to demonstrate to people that the definition of socially responsible is different to everybody. For some funds, SR means screening alcohol, tobacco, and gambling. For others, it means seeking out alternative energy technologies. For still others, it means devoting 1 percent to community investments.
2. Being socially responsible should not automatically entitle your mutual fund or adviser to a drastically higher fee. Many SRI mutual funds insist that the higher fees are the result of their size. Hogwash! They are trying to capture the LOHAS demographic that is willing to pay higher prices for sustainable products. There are many cost competitive alternatives, including the ones offered by First Sustainable.
   
3. Investing Responsibly does NOT mean you will sacrifice performance. The best academic studies show that SRI and non-SRI strategies perform about equally. In some years, non-SRI strategies do better. In no case does one strategy consistently or significantly outperform.
   
4. Screening out the bad actors is not the only SRI strategy. After weeding out any company that has even a somewhat objectionable product or stance, one must wonder if there will be anything left. The answer depends, of course, on how strict your social criteria is. However, you can also choose to pick the most ethically inclined companies in each industry. You can choose companies that show a steady improvement in their ethical behavior.
5. One should agitate for responsible choices in your 401(k). Almost every 401(k) platform makes it extremely easy to add funds if the employees demonstrate that they want them. So, if your company offers no SRI alternative, speak up! With half of investable assets in these qualified plans, it makes a huge difference.

Go to Part 2

Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Thought

At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, researchers presented a paper showing that Greenland's rate of melting essentially doubled over the last 10 years, adding a volume of water to the North Atlantic equal to the volume of Lake Erie. While conceding that there may be a phenomenon at work that they do not know about, the prevalence of fast melting in all polar latitudes suggests that it is due to global warming.

The American press would like to resort to fear-mongering and evoke images of the movie "The Day After" where the whole earth froze in a matter of days (the Globe and Mail has a less hysteric take on it). It is true that the world's oceans would rise 7 meters if the ice cap melted, but that would take millenia, even at the current rate. What is not being discussed in the reports I read is the danger to the Gulf Stream. Cold water from the ice cap would push warm water and sediment down, effectively shutting down the conveyor that heats Europe. The result of global warming for Europe would be a massive cooling of their continent. Unlike the deluge featured in "The Day After", this could happen in a matter of years.

To give you an idea of how that would affect Europe, Rome is on the same latitude as Chicago. Paris is on the same latitude as Fargo. London is on the same latitude as much of the southern Greenland ice cap that is now melting. Agriculture would be completely disrupted and infrastructure designed to handle more moderate temperatures would be insufficient to protect residents from the elements. Today in Austin, we're expecting ice for the first time in 3 years, and the whole city is going batty. Imagine if this phenomenon lasted the whole season and covered a continent.

Socially Responsible Indexes

Low-cost and diversification are the key to a successful portfolio these days. I've said many times in this space that active management is not worth the money you pay for it. Indexing is the way to go if you want to capture the most that the market has to offer. The most popular indexes, however, do not have a social component. The indexes mentioned below do.

• Calvert Social Index (Symbol: CSXAX, CSXBX, CSXCX depending on which class you own). I appreciate all that Calvert has done for the social investing field. The Calvert Social Index is a worthwhile benchmark. The fund, however, is exceedingly expensive for an index fund. All the performance criteria are quoted before fees. They have three classes of funds, depending on from whom you buy the fund. If you buy from an adviser, there is a max up-front sales charge of 4.75 percent which is patently ridiculous for an index fund.
  
• Citizens 300 Fund (Symbol: CFCDX). You can see which companies are in this portfolio by clicking here. The fund charges no load, but the expense ratio of .9 percent is still very rich for an index fund. Environmentalism and diversity are their social criteria.
• KLD Select Social Index (Symbol: KLD). This is an exchange traded fund, based on the widely used KLD benchmark. See this post for pros and cons of ETF investing. The ETF is a product of Barclay's iShares, and carries an expense ratio of .50, which is still pretty rich for an ETF. Quoting from KLD's own description of how they determine index constituents:
• "The scores are derived from the ratings awarded to a company in its social and environmental profile. To come up with a score, the concerns are subtracted from the strengths and are normalized to give each issue area the same weight. KLD rates companies in 7 issue areas: community, corporate governance, diversity, employee relations, environment, product, and human rights. Finally to determine the company's weight in the Index, KLD applies an optimization process using the company's score, market cap, and industry. The optimization process allows for the Index to approximate the same industry weights as the Russell 1000 (upon which it is based), while controlling risk."
• Mennonite Mutual Aid (Symbol: MVIAX, MVIBX, depending on which class). A useful PDF describing this fund can be obtained by clicking here. MMA has the best-performing funds of the last couple of years. However, there are 2 glaring problems with this fund. First, the fund charges a maximum of 4% sales load. Loads are not appropriate in index investing. Second, the fund itself varies substantially from its benchmark index. It has had variance of 20 percent or more (both up and down) versus the S&P Barra Value benchmark.
  
• CREF Social Index - A useful fund fact sheet can be obtained here. The fund has a reasonable expense ratio (.37%) and the fund can be purchased without a load. The index trails the S&P 500 by a small percentage.
• WilderHill Clean Energy Index (Symbol: PBW) - This is also an ETF, not a mutual fund. Expenses are capped at .6%, which is on the upper end of acceptable for an ETF. The components can be obtained from the Amex web site.

I must say I am disappointed by the choices in the field. Charging a load for an index fund is absolutely inappropriate, but half of the choices do just that. Furthermore, since indexing is a low cost way to invest, their expense ratios should be lower.

Analysis Paralysis in Your 401(k)

More choices equate to more confusion

Contributing to your employer's 401(k) plan is, by far, the biggest personal financial no-brainer. Where else can you get a guaranteed return of in excess of 100%? Yes, you read that right. When your employer matches your contribution, that means you doubled your investment. Actually, it gets better. In addition to the employer match, you save anywhere from 15 - 35 percent, depending on your tax bracket, by deferring the tax on that income. You might save an additional 6% if you live in a state with an income tax. Even if you choose to put that money in a money market fund, these gimme's make the 401(k) superior to just about any other option. Any financial planner worth his salt will tell you that maxing out your 401(k) contributions is the smartest thing you can do.

Now for the bad news. According to a 2004 study by the Human Resources firm Hewitt Associates, a large percentage of employees are failing to adequately manage their 401(k). Consider these awful statistics:

• Only 17 percent of participants made any transactions in their 401(k) beyond the automatic contribution.
• Only half of eligible workers in their 20s elect to participate.
• A significant percentage of participants direct their contribution to investment options such as money market funds, which are likely to deliver insufficient performance to meet retirement needs.
  
• When employees leave the company, half will elect to cash out their 401(k) rather than rolling it into an IRA, or another qualified plan. The penalties, which include a 10% IRS penalty, full taxation on the distribution which can max out at 35 percent, and the lost tax deferral on the entire distribution, can devastate a retirement plan.

A conclusion of this study was that workers are overwhelmed with the number of investment choices, even though they asked for them and got them. In the words of one University of Pennsylvania researcher, "most 401(k) participants are characterized by profound inertia." The consequences of this state of affairs will be dire, especially for the under 40 set, whose chances of receiving the level of benefits from Social Security diminish every year.

I have a solution to this mess, and yes, it includes a shameless plug. Employers should hire local advisers for their funds, so that in addition to a 401(k), comprehensive financial planning can be offered to each employee. Doing so increases the employee's participation rate, and improves the choices that the participants make.

This solution does not necessarily create more cost for the employer. The average expense ratio in a 401(k) is 1.57 percent, which is exceedingly expensive when you consider that the average mutual fund underperforms the market by a comparable sum. At First Sustainable, we can chop that figure in half, after adding in advisory fees. What's more, the employer can elect to have most of that figure paid by employees.

The benefits to this style are enormous. We offer free consultations to every employee, taking into account all aspects of the financial condition, including that of children and significant others. The large 401(k) providers have a 5 step questionnaire which is nothing more than an attempt to sell the most expensive funds.

If you have 3 employees or more, you should give us a call and let us show you how easy and inexpensive this can be. For employers, offering a 401(k) is the best employee recruitment and retention tool. For employees, as I said at the top, is the biggest no-brainer.

Pity The Poor Oil Companies

According to a recent Business Week article, things are not all champagne and caviar at the oil companies these days. High oil prices are making it more -- not less -- difficult to secure new supplies. Governments and dictators who have dominion over the lands with the oil are finding it easier to drive a hard bargain at these prices. Oil companies are still entering into long term agreements as if the price of oil will be retreating to $30/barrel. Governments -- some of which are run by shady operators if not outright thugs such as Venezuela's, Libya's, and Ivory Coast's -- are deciding instead to insist on joint ventures that cut them in on a bigger share of the booty.

One important metric that got lost in all the hype about their $36 billion (with a "B") annual profit was Exxon's production volume, which dropped 3.5 percent in 2005 One would assume that, with oil at these prices, the company would be opening the spigot. Conspiracy theorists believe that the company is deliberately holding back to maintain the high prices. The truth is, the oil companies can't find enough new supplies to keep up. They are selling as much as they can get, but they can only get so much with their newly emboldened political partners. When oil was trading at $10/bbl, these governments needed all the help they could to profitably get their black gold from the ground, so the oil companies had them over a barrel (metaphorically speaking, of course). My, how things have changed.

On top of this morass, the oil companies must deal with political opportunists, who encourage oil companies to take on the risks of exploration, but when the project is successful, the rules get changed. Venezuala's Hugo Chavez is now forcing all oil companies to convert their royalty-paying projects to joint ventures, after the fact. Even in Great Britain, taxation on North Sea oil is now subject to a "windfall tax", giving the Brits a greater share of revenue. And, of course, one can't forget the saber-rattling in our own U.S. Senate over imposing a similar windfall tax. Seeing as the oil companies pump a declining share of their oil from U.S. lands, the U.S. version of the windfall tax would be on top of the other extortion from the host lands.

The bottom line is the oil companies have a reinvestment problem. They are sitting on a horde of billions in cash that are merely earning bank rates of interest, even after huge dividends and stock buybacks. So, even at these prices, they can't find projects that yield better returns.

Permit me to shed a crocodile tear. Unfortunately, I have to agree with the oil execs that a windfall tax is inherently immoral. Capitalism should not be about a game of "you keep the dryholes, and we'll take the gushers". However, there IS an acceptably moral way to capture more money for federal coffers. STOP SUBSIDIZING THE OIL COMPANIES! They get tax breaks for exploration to the tune of $5 billion a year. Many people (though not me) feel that the hundreds of billions of dollars spent protecting Middle Eastern oil fields, including the entire Iraq War, amount to a huge subsidy for big oil. There is no reason to continue doling out federal dollars at these prices. This subsidy should be eliminated, and there should be no more talk of a windfall tax.

Strange Bedfellows: 85 Evangelical Christian Leaders Go Green

Environmentalists now have an unlikely ally in the fight against global warming. On Thursday, 85 evangelical leaders, including notables such as "Purpose Driven Life" author Rick Warren, urged adoption of the Climate Steward Act. Backed by Arizona Republican and presidential aspirant John McCain along with Connecticut Democrat Joseph Lieberman, the Act calls for the U.S. to retreat to the emissions levels of 2000 by 2010. The group will back up their resolution by running television spots and ads in the New York Times.

As a churchgoing Christian and environmentalist, I say it is about time. There is nothing in the Bible that equates "dominion over the earth" with liquidating the natural assets for profit. It is inherently immoral to leave the ramifications for future generations.

Environmental pundits need to recognize, embrace, and be glad for this event. It would be easy to see this as an apparent "fracture in the Republican base" (Reuters). It is not that at all. Even if evangelicals were one-issue types, this would not be that one issue.

A Solution to Cadmium Poisoning

One of the unfortunate by-products of our reliance on coal for power generation is the toxic release of cadmium. Power plants spew the toxin into nearby land, where it gets into the soil. If that land happens to be a farm, cadmium poisoning of the food supply is a serious risk. Leafy plants such as rice, tobacco, and lettuce soak up cadmium as if it were any other soil nutrient. In Asia, population density, a reliance on coal power generation, and a cultural dependence on rice as a diet staple, have made cadmium poisoning a leading cause of death and disability. It causes brittle bones, kidney disease, infertility in men, and excruciating pain. Children, such as the unfortunate soul depicted in the photograph, are especially susceptible, and there is no cure.

The causes and effects of cadmium poisoning have been known for decades. In Asia’s less wealthy economies, poisoned crops still regularly creep into the food supply. In Japan, displacing farmers on affected land is politically untenable, so the government has taken to paying farmers to leave poisoned land untended or simply buying up the poisoned crops. Since this program is not sustainable, soil remediation is the only alternative. However, the best method in use today is “dig and haul”, literally digging up the top soil and disposing of it. The method is expensive, costing approximately $1 million per acre. With millions of acres affected, progress would be slow, even if the continued burning of coal ceased tomorrow.

Last year, while immersed in the Science and Technology Commercialization program at the University of Texas, some classmates of mine learned of a project from world renowned scientists to develop a plant that actually soaks up the cadmium from the soil at such a rate that remediation happens in a matter of 4-6 years. Over these seasons, the plants are discarded, the metal is reclaimed, new seeds are planted, and after a few seasons, the soil is back to normal. The technique has been given the term “phytoremediation” and the plant has been trademarked as “phytogreen”. The team worked up a business model whereby this patented plant could be deployed to remediate the affected acreage at a cost of $25,000 per acre, well less than the cost of dig and haul, and even less than the $137,000 to pay farmers to leave the land fallow. At $25k per acre and millions upon millions of acres either poisoning the population or otherwise useless, the opportunity is huge for the right commercialization team.

Obstacles remain for this technology, but none seem insurmountable. The first is acquiring the intellectual property. The team of scientists, from University of Maryland, Massey University in New Zealand, and Australia’s University of Melbourne, are spread out. The patents are shared between the individuals and their respective universities. University commercialization is terribly cumbersome, as the institutions are bureaucratic and not necessarily motivated by monetary incentives. Second, working out the “who pays” scenario will require some strong arming. A government would be the logical choice, but again, politicians are not necessarily motivated by economic incentives. The companies who were responsible for poisoning the land may not be motivated to pay either, considering they were brazen enough to poison the land in the first place. A real estate speculation play may be the ideal scenario. Especially in Japan, where an acre is extremely valuable, $25,000 to improve it and make it useful again, is a drop in the bucket. The third obstacle is controlling the intellectual property. By nature, the plant will seek to replicate itself. If seeds are available for free, who will pay the royalties? The scientists are working on making the seeds infertile. Whatever the model, this technology is here today and ready for deployment.

Thanks to Jean Norton, Kiem Tjong, Barry Kulpa, Kenichi Nakamura, David Huo, and Hyeram Youm for their considerable research and contribution to the article.

Investing in Biofuels

Many pundits who listened to the President's State of the Union speech, including Jon Stewart (my favorite) on the Daily Show, were scratching their heads at Bush's statement about making gasoline out of "switch grass and wood chips". What he is talking about is cellulosic ethanol, and it truly does have many people believing that it will carry us to energy independence.

Ethanol has been around for decades. It enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight during the energy shortages of the Jimmy Carter era, when subsidies were dished out by the truckload to heartland farmers to make the stuff out of corn. Back then, the engines of the day were not prepared for ethanol, and the slow uptake of the fuel relegated it to fringe use. Today, ethanol works just as well as gasoline in most engines. In Brazil, flex fuel engines, which cost no more than $200 to install, 73 percent of drivers have this modification, and as a result, the country is not dependent at all on foreign sources of oil, instead relying on ethanol made from sugarcane.
These technologies are here today, and it does not require a massive change to the infrastructure the way that a hydrogen economy would.

Cellulosic ethanol is just ethanol made from different plants, and yes, switch grass and wood chips are potential feedstocks. The process is basically the same as that used by Kentucky Moonshiners to get grain alcohol. Distillation forces the cellulose (the material that holds cells together) to convert into alcohol and sugars. The promise of cellulosic ethanol is that it can use agricultural waste, of which we have tons.

So, how does one invest in this market? The only pure play is a company called Pacific Ethanol (NASDAQ:PEIX). This smallish company has built ethanol refineries in California, and has garnered investment from Bill Gates. However, the company is already in the hands of speculators. Just last week, thanks to the State of the Union speech, the company rocketed from $12 to almost $19, and back below $17. The higher prices make the fundamentals look very bubble-ish.

Safer bets include:

1. Archer Daniels Midland (NYSE:ADM) which has about 5 percent of revenue, but 20 percent of profit from its ethanol business.
2. Bunge (NYSE:BG), which processes soy and rapeseed.
3. Monsanto (NYSE:MON), whose genetically modified soy and corn seeds are well suited to ethanol production (according to Fortune Magazine).

Another strategy, albeit potentially more risky, is to buy commodity contracts on the crops involved in the process. Sugar, especially, is widely traded. Commodities have gotten a bad rap as too risky, but it is more often leverage that gets people in trouble, not the instruments themselves.

I have said in this space before that the physics of the much-hyped hydrogen fuel cell cars are too problematic for transportation. Ethanol burns cleaner, and is grown right here in the USA. Combine this with more fuel efficient cars, and the road to energy independence could be a lot less bumpy. Let's hope that the Bushies are not just paying lip service.

Politicos Attack Tech Firms Over China

I posted the following response to a news.com article regarding the chest-thumping of politicians about human rights in China in light of Google's cooperation with Beijing to create a censored site.

My business is socially responsible investing. I pulled up my handy dandy Ideals Work database and pulled up a list of companies that had knocks on them for either "ties to Chinese government" or "ties to oppressive regimes". I came up with the list below. Obviously, Google is not showing up yet. It's not pretty. Perhaps these congressional reps should first check to see who donated to their campaign, and haul them all in. I would be happy to elaborate on these further. My email is below.

Altria Group, Inc. MO
American Standard Companies Inc. ASD
Andrew Corp ANDW
BJ Services Company BJS
Baker Hughes Incorporated BHI
Bard (CR) Inc BCR
Caterpillar Inc CAT
Chevron Corp CVX
Cisco Systems Inc CSCO
Citigroup Inc. C
Conagra Foods Inc. CAG
ConocoPhillips COP
Corning Inc GLW
Danaher Corp DHR
Du Pont (E I) de Nemours DD
EOG Resources, Inc. EOG
Ecolab Inc ECL
Electronic Data Systems Corp. EDS
Emerson Electric Co EMR
Exxon Mobil Corp. XOM
Fluor Corp. FLR
Ford Motor Co F
General Electric Co GE
General Motors Corp. GM
Halliburton Co. HAL
Heinz (H J) Co HNZ
Hewlett-Packard Co. HPQ
IMS Health Inc. RX
ITT Industries, Inc. ITT
Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited IR
International Business Machines Corp. IBM
International Flavors & Fragrances Inc. IFF
Johnson & Johnson JNJ
Johnson Controls Inc JCI
Kerr-McGee Corp. KMG
Kimberly-Clark Corp KMB
Lockheed Martin Corp. LMT
Lucent Technologies Inc. LU
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. MMC
Microsoft Corp. MSFT
Monsanto Co. MON
NCR Corporation NCR
Newmont Mining Corp. (Holding Company) NEM
Nike Inc NKE
Noble Corp NE
Occidental Petroleum Corp OXY
Omnicom Group Inc. OMC
Oracle Corp ORCL
PepsiCo, Inc. PEP
Pfizer Inc. PFE
Raytheon Co. RTN
Reynolds American Inc RAI
Sara Lee Corp SLE
Schlumberger Ltd SLB
Starbucks Corp SBUX
Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide HOT
Sun Microsystems Inc SUNW
The Clorox Company CLX
The Coca-Cola Company KO
The Dow Chemical Company DOW
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. GT
The Interpublic Group of Companies, Inc. IPG
The Procter & Gamble Company PG
Thermo Electron Corp. TMO
Transocean Inc. RIG
Tyco International Ltd. TYC
Unisys Corp UIS
United Parcel Service, Inc. UPS
Waste Management, Inc. WMI
Xerox Corp XRX
Yum Brands, Inc. YUM

Mark Brandon
Sustainable Log - News and Views for Socially Responsible Investors
http://sustainablelog.blogspot.com
http://www.firstsustainable.com
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