As some  of you will know, I was recently on holiday visiting my friends in Germany. So there was I on a rather rainy day wandering around Freiburg - a very attractive university city and also Germanys' greenest - which is pretty green when you realise how far ahead of us they are in all things environmental. I turned the corner into the Market Square and what did I bump into -- an exhibition about ethical investment! Needless to say, I felt compelled to pop in and see what was on offer - my basic German wasn't up to the full seminar programme but I did pop around some of the stall to see what was being promoted. Interestingly, the emphasis seemed to be on single focus, environmental funds such as forestry, solar, wind and other renewables. Not a lot of general 'ethical' offerings as a far as I could see.

If your German is up to scratch you can get more information at www.ecoeffekt.de

I was also very pleased to see one of the products of a company called Tomra in action. Many of you will invest in this company either through a fund or directly. Tomra are the leading supplier of 'reverse vending' machines; these machines are use to collect drinks bottels that have a deposit on them. This is still very comon in Germany and the customer simply takes their bottles back, puts them in the machine and it gives you the deposit refund - those clever Germans! Here's a picture of our friend Jutta using the machine.