Should Green VCs Care About More Then Money?

Last month, I was skimming over some of my favorite blogs on Renewable Energy World and came across a post by one of my favorite tweeples @solarfred titled Should Solar Sales People and Crew be Smoking Cigarettes? Probably Not. The connection between environmental, social, and health concerns is clear and the topic peeked my interest. However, from doing work installing solar panels with Nexamp, its clear that the manual labor is performed by blue collar workers who tend to smoke more than average. Regardless, its a great question. Its like, would you trust a grossly overweight nutritionist? I know that I wouldn’t.

Can we ask a similar question about green investors? Over my years of attending random clean tech networking and conferences around the Boston area I’ve noticed that I always get a strange taste in my mouth when I met a VC or angel investor that’s interested in the sector but has no clue what its really about. They talk about the money to be made, the huge growth in the industry, but they show no understanding of the true values of the movement.

Just like I wouldn’t trust a solar salesperson who smoked, it’s hard for me to trust green investors who are only in it for the money.

Do you think green investors should care about more than money? If no, why not?