Performance and risk of green funds

The ecological finance development led to the spread of some specific categories of ethical funds based on an environmental and ecological inclination. Green funds are mutual funds or other investment vehicles that invest in firms with a social consciousness or an environmental responsibility. The aim is to offer an overview of the green funds market through a comparison of their performance and risk. The research is developed through the collecting and reelaborating of a data set of 257 green funds all over the world published on www.morningstar.com. The study, recorded by the sample of green funds, uses a multi-disciplinary approach and it was run on April 24, 2013, first, by calculation and comparison of performances and volatility measurements, then, by a cohort analysis to put in evidence the value of some parameters (annual return, risk, modern portfolio theory and portfolio geographical distribution) of the cohort of funds in the period of 1985-2012.