Two years ago, OnEarth ran an interesting article and podcast on socially responsible investing. Remembrance of those pieces quickened my interest in an article in yesterday's New York Times on green investment funds; the Times story provides something of a yardstick re how socially responsible investing is evolving.

Most significant is that the institutional-investing heavyweights -- pension funds, foundations, universities and the like -- are beginning to get involved:

Until recently, green investment funds were mostly a niche for individual investors. But now investing with the idea of improving the environmental actions of corporations, not just maximizing profit, is catching on among some big pension funds and foundations, particularly in Europe and even in the United States.

It's also plain to see that at least some of these funds are today more narrowly focused on climate change and have made leaps in the sophistication with which they are using their portfolios to encourage companies to reduce carbon footprints.

The Times story notes that a lot of institutional investors remain hesitant to commit to green investment funds, for fear that doing so will hurt earnings. Here's hoping that there are now enough large investors -- among those mentioned by the article are the California State Teachers' Retirement fund and the pension funds of several EU national governments -- taking the plunge to produce empirical evidence that maximizing earnings and socially responsible investing needn't be contradictory.