Investors are being told it's a myth that putting their money into socially and environmentally friendly investments will cost them.

The amount of New Zealanders' money invested in negatively screened funds – those that avoid certain investments, such as tobacco or land mines – increased 2500 per cent last year, to hit $42.7 billion.

But some investors are still reluctant to shift their money to responsible options - assuming that to do so would cost them returns.

Tobacco, coal and gambling are out and so is Amazon when it comes to a new responsible investment fund.

Auckland based boutique fund manager Pathfinder has launched a Global Responsibility Fund and is taking a tough stance on where it invests.

John Berry, chief executive of Pathfinder Asset Management, said as well as excluding the typical nasties the fund uses a controversy rating system and only picks those with high environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores.

OPINION: Last week there was an interesting opinion piece on Stuff by Richard Meadows.

Entitled, "The case against 'ethical' investing," the article pointed out some of the very real difficulties with socially responsible investment.

Fair enough, I thought – there certainly are difficulties and there is every benefit to point them out.

However, I turned grumpy when Meadows said that ethical investing won't make a jot of difference and may do more harm than good.

New Zealand investment managers may be neglecting their duty to put investors' interests first by taking an exclusion-only approach to responsible investment, a major KiwiSaver provider has warned.

Kiwi Wealth, a KiwiSaver provider which is owned by the government, ACC and the NZ Superannuation Fund, has published a white paper on its take on responsible investment at the New Zealand Responsible Investment Conference in Auckland today.

Until recently the battle to avert catastrophic climate change – floods, droughts, famine, mass migrations – seemed to be lost. But with the tipping point just years away, the tide is finally turning, thanks to innovations ranging from cheap renewables to lab-grown meat and electric airplanes