Cleaning Up on Market, Environment : Investment: New newsletter will guide environmentalists to mutual funds with which they hold mutual interest.

LAGUNA HILLS —  Environmentalists can be investors too, and they are starting to get professional advice on how to reconcile green politics and greenbacks.

Over the past year, several new mutual funds have been launched to invest in pollution control, waste disposal and clean energy companies. And an Orange County entrepreneur has plans for a monthly investment newsletter that will track environmental stocks and funds.

“The gap between environmentalists and industry is much smaller than it used to be,” said David L. Brown of Laguna Hills, publisher of the new newsletter. “There are people who want to invest profitably while adding in some of their values--there is a meeting point.”

Dubbed the Wall Street Green Review, the monthly newsletter--scheduled for launch in January--will track companies that fall into one of two environmental categories: waste services and alternative resources.

The waste services classification includes clean-up companies such as Waste Management and environmental engineering companies such as Groundwater Technologies, while the alternative resources firms include those involved in natural gas, geothermal energy, and solar power.

Brown said the newsletter was not intended to be an environmental publication, but neither will it serve as a “beat-the-market” tip-sheet, as do most investment newsletters. Brown, a financial planner who was previously involved with “socially responsible” mutual funds, advocates a long-term investment strategy, and the newsletter will aim simply to provide information on companies in the environmental industry.

The tiny but growing group of environmental mutual funds display a similar split personality on the question of whether they are traditional money-making funds or vehicles for doing good.

“The reason we started this fund is because we see huge potential in this sector,” said Andrew Groshans, portfolio manager for the SFT Environmental Awareness Fund. The growing commitment of government and industry to clean up and protect the environment will mean lots of new business for environmental companies, he said.

While admitting a personal interest in environmental protection, Groshans said the fund is managed from a “capitalistic point of view.”

Similarly, the environmental unit investment trust--similar to a mutual fund--that was launched earlier this year by Merrill Lynch, and the new Fidelity Select Environmental Services Fund are clearly aimed at generating maximum possible profits.

David Schoenwald, on the other hand, describes his New Alternatives Fund as the “hippie and civil liberties union mutual fund,” and said the management philosophy is based on trying to be “socially concerned and do the right thing.” New Alternatives is more focused on alternative energy and conservation companies and doesn’t get involved with the waste management firms, Schoenwald said.

New Alternatives, founded in 1982, is the oldest of the environmental funds. But ironically, the sudden interest of the “capitalists” in environmental stocks may leave Schoenwald and the socially conscious more and more isolated. Brown and his newsletter may be trying to bridge a gap, but the gap certainly remains.