Economic growth and development around the world are leading to increasing worldwide demand for energy, whose production still mainly comes from fossil fuels generating large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions, which contribute to global warming and climate change. To mitigate climate change, the European Union implemented an energy policy strategy that encourages firms to implement sustainable energy systems. This could generate investment opportunities in energy efficiency and renewable energy projects around the world for European mutual funds. Therefore, the main aim of this paper is to analyze the financial performance of energy and renewable energy mutual funds using conditional and unconditional models. To this end, we have a sample of 4496 mutual funds commercialized in Europe in the period 2007–2018. Our results indicate that renewable energy mutual funds perform similarly to the market using conditional models. However, they underperform their conventional peers using a specialized market benchmark, reaching similar performance to black energy funds. While the total expense ratio negatively affects renewable energy financial performance, other fund characteristics, such as size or Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) certification, do not affect it. •This study analyzes the financial performance of energy and renewable energy funds.•This study implements conditional and unconditional models.•Renewable energy funds perform similarly to the market using conditional models.•Renewable energy funds underperform their conventional peers in unconditional models.•The total expense ratio negatively affects renewable energy financial performance.