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Dear <<First Name>>,
The World Health Organization has chosen a theme for this year's World No Tobacco Day that might surprise you. Tobacco is poisoning our planet.
For decades, tobacco companies have driven cigarette smoking, the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States. They are now also responsible for marketing e-cigarettes to people of all ages, which has prompted the U.S. Surgeon General to declare an epidemic due to the popularity and health risks of vaping.
 The public health damage caused by these companies is just one of the reasons why Green Century° has never invested in the tobacco industry and why we recently signed the new Tobacco Free Portfolio Pledge, becoming one of the first U.S. mutual fund families to join as a Pledge Stamp Member.
What's less well-known is the tobacco industry's contribution to global warming and to the destruction of forests and other ecosystems.
The tobacco industry's carbon footprint is equivalent to 84 million metric tons of CO2. If the tobacco industry were a country, its climate impact would be more than twice that of Denmark. Tobacco plantations also use huge volumes of water and pesticides, and the runoff from tobacco fields includes pesticide residues that can cause harm to fish populations and reduce biodiversity.
After harvesting, some types of tobacco are hung in curing barns and dried by heated air. This process requires as much as eight million tons of firewood every year that is removed from nearby forests, contributing to carbon pollution and destroying these natural carbon storage systems.
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There are so many reasons to invest tobacco-free and we thank you for being part of this work.
If you are concerned about vaping and want to learn more, please visit End the Nicotine Trap, a campaign led by one of Green Century's non-profit partners, USPIRG.
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Sincerely,
Leslie Samuelrich
President
Green Century Capital Management
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