Are you an ethical investor? I know, for some, the term “ethical investor” might seem like an oxymoron, but ethical investors try their best to find investments worthy of support in hopes that these companies will survive and prosper despite practices that seem to fly in the face of “normal” business. Even if you don't lean toward ethical, or socially responsible, investments, if your portfolio doesn't contain some green stocks, then you may be missing the boat.

But, where do you find ethical investments? On campus, of course. This past week, I learned that many college campuses often are greener than the towns or cities they inhabit. While Ivy League schools are included on this list, many smaller colleges also are making high marks in sustainable practices.

The process to finding these colleges was easy. The idea of how to fit this knowledge into building a green portfolio wasn't as easy, because learning how these campuses gained their sustainable status is unclear on lists such as those found at Treehugger, Sierra Club, Mother Nature Network and Princeton Review. So, you need to dig deeper to find the organizations that support and reward these campuses for their efforts. One such organization is the AASHE, or the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

AASHE is an association of colleges and universities that are working to create a sustainable future in an inclusive way. In other words, these institutions of higher learning not only are building and revamping college facilities along green values – they also are incorporating sustainable practices in their curricula, in their human health systems, in transportation and in social justice systems. The students who graduate from these colleges in upcoming years will be future leaders who have been steeped in sustainable practices.

But, what are these students and school boards using to make these practices work? First, their plans are based upon a philosophy that makes sustainable practices a norm within higher education. From that perspective, disseminating information becomes easier, as do collaboration and decision-making processes. Additionally, when a base philosophy supports all sectors of campus life, then the choices become all-encompassing – even to the point of spreading outward into the towns and cities that these campuses inhabit.

Beyond that philosophy, school boards have created new departments to make decisions about everything from changing purchasing practices for everyday items to ways to make a campus greener. But, a better way to provide an indicator about how expansive this program is becoming is to point you to the AASHE Resource Center. Here, you can learn more about the tools, guidelines and research that this organization has conducted since its inception in 2001. Further, you can see how some campuses are applying these tools in their applications for their AASHE profiles and awards.

Unfortunately, some resources are available only to AASHE members. But, you can gain access to enough materials to learn more about what to look for when you investigate companies for ethical investing. Here are some examples:

• If you don't know what LEED stands for, then it's time to learn. Warren Wilson College, located in Asheville, North Carolina, built the first building on a college campus to achieve LEED Platinum certification in the Existing Buildings (EB) category in 2003. Since that time, the University of Portland dedicated two LEED gold-certified dorms in 2009, Baylor is on track to be the first academic institution in Tennessee to seek LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification for a building and many other schools are demanding no less than the lowest LEED certification standard for any new building and renovations.

While LEED standards are considered more a property investment than a portfolio investment, you can look for the companies that are committed to LEED standards and learn more about the materials they use to fulfill LEED standards.

• If you want to learn more about how campuses are using alternative energy, look no further than many of the school profiles at AASHE. Take Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, an institution that worked closely with a local energy company to finance new solar and geothermal energy systems on campus. If you look through the campus profiles, you'll discover many more solar array projects, geothermal energy investigations and colleges – like Duke University – that are challenging others beyond campus to get off the “grid.”

How does this information jive with the energy stocks you have in your portfolio? If you know nothing about geothermal energy or solar arrays, then use the Internet to learn more about these topics. Wind power also is in huge use across this nation's campuses, so don't forget to include wind power in your investigations. Contact the colleges, if you want, to find out more about how they are building their sustainable energy systems (most AASHE profiles contain contact information).

There is not enough room to instruct you on how to use the AASHE site, nor how to use that site to your advantage. But, the site is intuitive and you have a fertile imagination, so I'll let you go at it. For instance, if you looked at Arizona State University and followed a link to their Campus Metabolism site, I wonder how you'd imagine how this type of Web-based instrument could be used, and how it could change your way of living as it could monitor basically any building within a given area for energy use.

This is the type of information that clearly sends a message: The students who graduate from these colleges will live far different lives than the ones you and I have lived. And, they will be the leaders who will implement this type of change across the nation whenever possible. They can't help it – they are being trained to do so.

Does your portfolio match that future? If you're a long-term investor, you might think about making your own changes now.

Until Later,