The man who used to be the next president of the United States is taking the blogosphere seriously. We’re not talking peppering paid speaking engagements with an updated version of his “information superhighway” message of old. According to a new article in Wired magazine, blogs are influencing where Al Gore does – and doesn’t – put his money.

His new global fund, Generation Investment Management, takes a different approach to analyzing prospective investments. Before Generation invests in a business, it checks out how much the firm’s profits depend on high carbon output. That isn’t all, as reported in The Resurrection of Al Gore:

When considering an investment in an energy company with operations in the Rocky Mountain area, for instance, [Generation] analysts looked to community blogs, where they found considerable local opposition to the company’s strategy. “That business plan had a huge vulnerability that was outside the scope of its financial reports,” Gore says.

Clean profits. Clean image in local blogs. Two more things prospective investors might look for in companies of the future.