Businesses need a lot of things: good employees, solid ideas & strategy, competitive advantage, good leadership ... but without financing, none of the rest of it matters.

Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is a way to vote with your dollars, typically for traditional investments such as mutual funds and IRAs. SRI uses a variety of techniques to make sure your money is not invested in companies with poor social and environmental performance, and to help companies clean up their performance through shareholder advocacy.

Microfinance is a way to help small businesses get started with operations by providing seed funding.

Venture Capital is typically reserved for technology-based startups with large potential returns.

Regardless of the outlet, money is the lubricant for helping fuel the green economy. This column sheds light on all these topics and more, and should help us all 'vote with our dollars' to help the green economy succeed.