A green pioneer, recognized

Joan Bavaria of Marblehead, a pioneer in socially responsible investment, has won a nationwide award for four decades of work.

Bavaria, founding president and CEO of Trillium Asset Management Corp., also was the founding chair of Ceres, a national network of investors, environmental organizations, and other public interest groups working with corporations to address sustainability challenges.

On Thursday, Bavaria won the Charles R. Schwab IMPACT Award at a conference in Atlanta.

Trillium, founded in 1982, now has more than $1 billion in client assets. A year Trillium was launched, Bavaria helped start the Social Investment Forum, a national organization for practicing social investment professionals.

Bavaria was an early innovator in microfinance and helped bring a specialized community loan fund idea to Wall Street. Her company, Schwab noted in a release, is majority employee-owned and donates 5 percent of pre-tax profits to charitable causes.

For more on the awards, click here.