Sep. 21--Investors who hope to paint their portfolios green may find a confusing array of hues in the marketplace.

There are mutual funds that target the obvious choices for green-minded money managers. They own shares of solar energy companies, wind turbine makers, water filtration firms and clean energy endeavors.

PepsiCo Inc. and Toyota Motor Corp. might seem less obvious choices for a green fund, but they're in there, along with Overland Park-based YRC Worldwide Inc. and Sprint Nextel Corp.

"I guess there are different shades," said David Schoenwald, president of the 26-year-old New Alternatives Fund Inc., which focuses on the more conventional green approach.

The other approach is what Morningstar Inc. analyst Michael Herbst calls the "best-in-breed" thesis. The idea is to invest in the greenest carmaker, the greenest soap company, the greenest whatever.

It's a different shade that Jon Naimon incorporated in the name of the money management firm he co-founded a decade ago, namely Light Green Advisors.

Clients of Seattle-based Light Green can own shares of United Technologies Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Naimon said research has linked green corporate behavior with financial success.

"What we found is that the greener companies in an industry had a financial advantage," Naimon said.

How investors define green will go a long way toward telling them which money managers to pick.

"Green is definitely in the eye of the beholder," Herbst said.

Green investing has become the latest marketing move by the fund industry, mirroring campaigns by corporate America to paint itself green.

Herbst is tracking three-dozen mutual funds and exchange-traded funds that he considers to be green. Fewer than a fourth have been around long enough to establish a three-year return.

But they are attracting assets.

The exchange-traded funds, each of which is a separate pool of stocks that trades like a single stock, post some of the biggest dollars. The PowerShares Global Clean Energy Portfolio, Claymore S&P Global Water fund and Market Vectors Global Alternative Energy fund each top $300 million in assets.

The larger mutual funds with a green tone include the Calvert Global Alternative Energy Fund, the Winslow Green Growth Fund and the New Alternatives Fund, each above $250 million in assets.

Green investing is big on solar energy, but its enthusiasm for ethanol has faded somewhat.

Schoenwald said Abengoa S.A. is the only ethanol-related company the New Alternatives Fund holds, and that isn't the stock's prime appeal to him. The company owns ethanol facilities in Colwich, Kan., and several other states.

Ethanol, he said, has become controversial in the green community.