Yes, carmen and I are still alive - not that we’re getting many hits here nowadays – and we’re gearing up to make the long drive to Alaska here in a little less than a month eek!

Today though, I thought I would write about something I’ve been thinking about lately, magic beans green stocks.

It all started after I bought carmen a terrapass to help ease her mind after I convinced her that we needed to upgrade to a larger vehicle. In November we purchased a Hyundai Tucson but before you start booing and hissing and sending us hate mail let me make note of a few things of importance.

• We carpool just about every day to and from work and everywhere else, meaning we use the gas of one vehicle to get us almost anywhere and rarely do we need separate vehicles for anything.
• Our dogs are quite large – tenga weighs 85+ lbs and princess kasey weighs a dainty 65 lbs – needless to say a compact car is not for us. We tried for several years to pack everyone into a VW Golf but we ended up having so little room that the dogs couldn’t go on camping trips with us and, due to it’s compact nature, the Golf started to smell like dogs!
• We boutght a terrapass to offset the emissions the Tucson makes.
• We’re moving to a place where 4WD is almost mandatory of any vehicle and Hyundai’s have a very high safety rating which is good because I worry about carmen driving in the cold, dark, and snow that will soon be imminent.

That being said, I am very happy with the Tucson, carmen is probably still on the fence because of the gas mileage issue, but overall our finances have not suffered as a result of buying more gas. We have to fill the Tucson only as often as we usually had to fill the Golf and there’s only a 2 gallon difference in tank size.

Ok, long story short - I bought the terrapass but then began to think about investing in green projects I wanted to invest in, to play the stock market, maybe make some money, and start my own personal version of what terrapass is doing. The terrapass company is great, I think they do great things with the money they are given and they invest in lots of cool projects but there’s still overhead. I’m assuming some of the money from each pass is portioned off to pay company costs, the salaries of the employees etc. but what if I wanted to cut out the middle man and be able to invest more in green projects? Thus comes the idea of starting my own personal green stock portfolio which I will have some day…

Today I did some research into green stocks, probably sparked by my spontaneous visit to the wallstrip website where a girl I grew up with appears from time to time *Hi Lauren!* and I think green investing, if done responsibly and smartly could be pretty cool.

First, Sustainable Business has a really great list of green companies and their current stock situations.

Second, the worlds most sustainable stocks of 2007 published by Sustainable Business which is a very interesting list.

And Third, several of the most sustainable stocks of this year are also currently some of the best performers in wallstrip’s portfolio. Who knew a mexican food chain and a coffee roaster would be among some of the most progressive stocks around?

The full list for the top 20 this year, published here by Sustainable Business, are:

The SB20 List for 2007- Alphabetical Order

Best Water Technology (Vienna: BWT.VI) (Austria)
Canon (NYSE: CAJ) (Japan)
Comverge (Nasdaq: COMV) (USA)
Chipotle Mexican Grill (NYSE: CMG) (USA)
First Solar (Nasdaq: FSLR) (USA)
Fuel Tech (Nasdaq: FTEK) (USA)
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Nasdaq: GMCR) (USA)
Groupe Danone (DANO.PA) Netherlands
Herman Miller (Nasdaq: MLHR) (USA)
Interface (Nasdaq: IFSIA) (USA)
Land Securities (London: Land.L) Britain
NIKE, Inc. (NYSE: NKE) (USA)
Novozymes (Copenhagen: NZYM.CO) Denmark
Ormat Technologies (NYSE: ORA) (USA)
Precious Woods (Geneva: SWX: PRWN) Swizerland
Renewable Energy Corp – REC (Oslo: REC.OL) Norway
Royal Philips Electronics NV (NYSE: PHG) Netherlands
Schmack Biogas AG (Germany: SB1B.DE) Germany
Vestas (Copenhagen: VWS.CO) Denmark
Whole Foods Market (Nasdaq: WFMI) (USA)

Honorable Mention:
Google, Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG)

Cameras? Shoes? Coffee? Fast food? Really??? Very cool but somewhat surprising all the same. It will be interesting to keep watching over time and see where the market goes – today solar and wind power look good but who knows what tomorrow will bring?