HE top holdings of the largest mutual funds in the United States include some of the world's biggest companies. Mutual funds that call themselves socially responsible hold many of the same stocks.

That appalls Paul G. Hawken, the writer, entrepreneur and environmental advocate who was a co-founder of the Smith & Hawken gardening tool business, and who recently conducted a study of socially responsible funds. "The 30 top holdings of North American socially responsible funds are almost identical to the Dow Jones" industrial average, which tracks 30 blue-chip stocks, he said. "Why do I need the socially responsible funds to buy the Dow Jones?"

Funds in the socially responsible category typically screen out companies they consider bad apples. They often exclude entire industries like tobacco, alcohol or gambling. Mr. Hawken found in his study of 600 socially responsible funds around the globe that all but seven of the Fortune 400 companies were held by at least some of these funds.

"I want to know the thinking behind these investment decisions," said Mr. Hawken, 59. "I think investors deserve to know that."

It's not enough for a socially responsible fund to state its investment criteria, he said; it should go a step further and discuss how each holding meets those criteria. He published his findings in a report posted on the Web site of the Natural Capital Institute (http://www.naturalcapital.org/), a small research organization in Sausalito, Calif., of which he is the unpaid executive director. Many people associated with socially responsible funds, including some whose holdings were criticized by Mr. Hawken, complain that he has lumped together every stripe of fund in the category. "He's painting the funds with a rather broad brush," said Joe Keefe, senior adviser for strategic social policy at Calvert Funds, which runs a stable of socially responsible funds.

In his analysis, Mr. Hawken criticizes various holdings of socially responsible funds, but some of those stocks may be in only a few such funds, Mr. Keefe said. "I suspect those companies would fail the screens" of most socially responsible portfolios, he said.

Calvert owns several stocks that Mr. Hawken finds problematic, including Microsoft, which he criticizes because of the way it has dominated software markets.

The category of socially responsible investing is a rather large umbrella. It covers fund companies like Domini, Calvert, Citizens and Pax, which use similar criteria to exclude companies that sell tobacco, alcohol and so forth. Many religious-based funds also fall into the category, and they typically use screens to exclude companies that their followers may find offensive. Catholic funds, for example, tend to exclude companies that sell or make contraceptives, while Muslim funds exclude financial services companies because they lend with interest, which is deemed usurious. In addition, there are single-issue funds, like those of the Sierra Club and Portfolio 21, which look almost exclusively at how companies measure up on environmental issues, and the Women's Equity fund, which screens for gender equality.

In addition, some funds use a best-in-class approach. Rather than weed out entire industries, they invest in some of the best companies within a sector, even industries like oil, which some environmentalists find objectionable. BP Amoco, the petroleum company, often makes the cut on this basis because of its work in renewable energy.

Those different mandates can lead to widely different portfolios. While the more general funds wind up with similar stocks, the religious funds often invest in companies that others find troubling. For example, the Ave Maria fund, which is based on Catholic principles, owns General Dynamics, the military contractor. Mr. Hawken's database, available at http://www.responsibleinvesting.org/, shows that none of the broader socially screened funds own the stock.

"We would like to have neat little boxes that all the funds could fit into," said Anita Green, vice president for social research at Pax World Funds, one of Mr. Hawken's targets. "So far we haven't found a method that will do it."

The Domini Equity fund, which tracks the Domini Social index of 400 companies, includes stocks of the Gap and McDonald's, to which Mr. Hawken objects. In designing the index, the fund's founder and chief executive, Amy Domini, included what she thought were the better half of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, plus 150 smaller names.

"I personally may prefer slow food to fast food. I personally prefer the ambiance of organic over nonorganic," Ms. Domini said. "But I don't have a mandate from the public to avoid fast food." Ms. Domini said that McDonald's had responded to calls to switch to napkins made of recycled paper, use soy-based ink and avoid antibiotics in beef.

"When I look at McDonald's versus the fast-food industry, I see them on a path toward human dignity and environmental sustainability," Ms. Domini said. "I can live with myself for investing in McDonald's."

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