Pax With the Devil

Enron is seldom called "socially conscious" these days -- but that's how some investment companies routinely described the company in the not-too-distant past. The Pax World Balanced Fund, which promotes investing in good corporate citizens, and the Domini 400 Social Index and Calvert Social Index, which screen stocks based on social and environmental criteria, all once championed Enron, as did other socially responsible investment funds. The much-maligned company was one of the few energy firms that passed environmental muster for do-good investors, thanks to its emphasis on natural gas and wind energy. (Not that Enron's image was entirely untarnished; socially conscious investors worried about the company's treatment of protestors at an energy plant in India, for example.) Happily, Pax World Fund pulled out of Enron before it imploded, so not all green investors lost the farm.