Personal Finance

Don't even try to pick based on performance. Whatever they did in the last year, or 5, or 10 is mostly irrelevant to what they do in the next 30. You're betting on the economy, not on a stock picker.

Beyond that, it kind of depends on why you want an 'SRI' fund. If you just want someone to tell you your investments don't make you a bad person, then pick a fund from a large brokerage with low maintenance fees, ideally in the range of 0.1%/year. If you want an SRI because you think the market is going to reward ethical companies or punish unethical companies, or because you''re willing to sacrifice long-term performance for not actively exploiting externalities, then you need to dig into the funds a little deeper and find out what they mean by 'social responsibility.' It's a hot marketing phrase right now, with no regulatory meaning, so you can be sure that there are products being called 'socially responsible' with little or no difference from products not so labeled.

If you actually have a specific ethical agenda, then you need to be prepared to do a lot of work. You'll need to understand how the fund defines SRI, find out what benchmarks they use to greenlight companies, and figure out whether those benchmarks can be greenwashed. Can Exxon donate a few million dollars to a sketchy 'reforestation charity' and claim to be carbon-neutral? I imagine this research is out there, but the people interested in Wall Street tend to be a different set than those interested in climate, labor rights, or political freedom.