It is however a fact that the investment sector has not waited for the Kyoto protocol in 1999 to promote the SRIs (for Socially Responsible Investments) taking extra financial criteria such as ESG (for Environment, Social and Governance) in the early nineties. These investments used both exclusion or negative (i.e. no investment in controversial fossil fuels like tar sands) and positive criteria (i.e. focusing on renewable energy production) and therefore gained popularity with institutional investors as well as private investors.