What can the investment community do?

Over the past few months there has been a lot of press about the cost and benefit brought on by the energy crisis. An even earlier report released in 2006 by Lord Stern of Brentford for the British government laid out the economic effect of climate change and global warming. In that report the figure of 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) was promoted as the cost of investments required to move the globe away from fossil fuels to renewable sources. The cost if we don't take steps would result in a hit of 20% reduction in GDP. Later the investment figure was raised to 2% global GDP.

There is a good article and book preview published last month on the web. Ostensibly a review of the book, "Profit from the Peak:The End of Oil and the Greatest Investment Event of the Century" by Brian Hicks and Chris Nelder, the writer, one the of the authors of the book does a good job and even handed job of weighing the options. He then goes on to point to the companies that he thinks are providing solutions - or from his perspective are companies worth looking at from an investment perspective.

A report released by McKinsey breaks down things further. The price tag, $170 billion in invesments to boost energy efficiency will reduce demand by 50% by2020. They compute the average internal rate of return (IRR) of these investments to be 17%. All investments would return at least 10%. Dollar estimates in terms of saving, $900 billion by 2020 or about .4% GDP.

Where should the investments be placed? Their formula, 50% in industrial, 25% in residential and 25% in commercial and transportation sectors. Additionally, about two thirds of these dollars would be targeted at developing economies where the cost of abatement is more than a third lower than in developed countries.

This is not the last of prescriptive ideas for solving our energy woes. I am sure that these ideas will get further embellished and refines. BUT the investment community cannot do it alone. We're going to need some very far reaching public policy changes to allow for the revamping of our energy generation, production and transmission systems. Here's an example of what some of the North American policy makers are doing.

Linda's perpective

The goal to find appropriate sustainable investing opportunities is driven by the idea that in a capitalist market dollars are the universally understood form of communication. We want more than a “good return on our money”. We are trying to send a message, using our dollars as a way of casting a vote for financial returns that do not come at the expense of off-the-balance sheet liabilities- environmental, social, or unknown long-term risk. We are hoping to impact the way businesses do business by letting them know that we care about the environmental and social impacts of their products as well as their management principles, and transparent reporting methods.


We began to look for investing opportunities that encourage sustainable business principles - attention to the triple bottom line, adding environmental and social accounting to economic profit. The many SRI Funds (Socially Responsible Investing) were presented as a sustainable option, but these funds are actually traditional investing vehicles with “filters” to remove “sin industries” or problematic industries like tobacco, gambling, war, and alcohol. These funds do not focus on companies that are doing great things, making a profit and operating in a sustainable way. They are primarily a negative screen for specific offending issues.

Rather than cut out the negative with overlaying filters to screen out those offensive industries, we want to invest in a positive investment strategy identifying better managed, innovative companies with a commitment to positive environmental, social and economic bottom line. In order to ensure that our investment dollars have the desired impact, a more complete and different type of analysis is required. After investigating many options, we were lead to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. The DJSI is a listing of the top economic performing companies in 52 identified sectors which are then screened for sustainable and management criteria. Unfortunately, the DJSI is not licensed in the United States. We are hoping to make this investment strategy available to all those who would like to use their investment dollars to do more than earn a profit. We want to this to be a transforming force in the market. We believe those companies whose accounting includes a triple bottom line are better managed, have a longer time horizon with stronger environmental performance and therefore less risk, and many studies show they are more profitable. Changing the way businesses operate with demand side pressure from stockholders is a proven strategy. As Flora has said, we have a lead investor and are interested in others with similar investment goals and a desire to make a difference while earning competitive returns.

(Linda asked that I post this as she is traveling.)