Aug/Sept 2023

Investing in Renewable Energy

Welcome to our Aug/Sept issue on Investing in Renewable Energy. This special double issue takes on an extremely urgent topic – the energy transition from fossil fuels to a clean energy future. One of the writers in this issue states that we are half through the 50-year transition to a more sustainable clean energy economy which will take trillions of dollars in annual investments to make it happen successfully. I believe, after 30 years of publishing GreenMoney, that stewardship of this planet is an unprecedented opportunity for our clean energy future.

In support of this multifaceted opportunity, we’re sharing an impressive set of articles including Ron Pernick of Clean Edge on Clean Energy Investment and Innovation Trends; Dr. Pooja Khosla of Entelligent on Navigating the Investment Impact from the EPA’s Evolving Carbon Rules; and Paul Hilton of Trillium looks at Public Equity Investing in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency. Also find David Breecker of Microgrid Systems Laboratory providing insights on Investing in Resilience and Access: The Global Microgrid Energy Landscape; and Zach Stein of Carbon Collective Investing educates us on The Climate Pricing Gap. Finally, check out our Featured Podcast from Bloomberg Green’s ZERO: The Climate Race on How solar’s explosive growth is making electricity free and a Featured TedxBoston Video with Dr. Jonathan Foley on Project Drawdown’s Science Framework to Accelerate Climate Solutions.

Back in June, one of our articles on the topic of clean energy took off on social media. When the team at Terrestrial Energy posted it on Twitter, it received thousands of clicks and retweets. The article featured well-respected Parnassus Investments removing their screen on nuclear energy in support of the transition to low-carbon economy. Read it here – Parnassus Removes Investment Screen for Nuclear Power.

Not often does a publisher receive two awards in a year but that has happened for GreenMoney. The latest is part of the annual Worldwide Finance Awards from Acquisition International. GreenMoney was named “Best Sustainable Investment Resource 2023 – North America.” Thank you for this recognition! 

Finally, as you know, the fall conference season is coming up quickly. Stay up to date on over 60 conferences with GreenMoney’s Global Events Calendar. We especially recommend Climate Week 2023, Sept 17-24 in New York; and the one I attend every year, the ESG for Impact Conference, October 8-11 in Broomfield, CO. See you there!

– Cliff Feigenbaum, publisher/founder

Clean Energy Investment and Innovation Trends: Navigating the Road Ahead

Ron Pernick
Clean Edge, Inc
Energy transition investments globally hit $1.1 trillion in 2022, breaking the $1 trillion mark for the first time, according to BloombergNEF. And a projected $1.7 trillion will be investing globally in clean energy in 2023, significantly more than the approximately $1 trillion expected to flow into fossil fuels, according to International Energy Agency.
 

Navigating the Investment Impact from the EPA’s Evolving Carbon Rules

Dr. Pooja Khosla and Thomas H. Stoner Jr.
Entelligent
For investors concerned about climate change risk, the issue of which stocks to buy, hold and sell can be quite complicated. The power sector represents the largest consumer of carbon fuels and is highly regulated. Data that measures climate risk – from sector-level analysis to security-level analysis – can be vital for investors who want exposure to the power sector while minimizing transition risk to a lower-carbon future.
 

Public Equity Investing in Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency

Paul Hilton
Trillium Asset Management
Trillium’s Sustainable Opportunities thematic public equity strategy aims to address global sustainability challenges in three core areas: climate solutions, economic inclusion, and healthy living. While many of Trillium’s equity strategies have exposure to renewable energy, the Sustainable Opportunities strategy has a greater level of exposure to climate solutions, like renewable energy and energy conservation.
 

Investing in Resilience & Access: The Global Microgrid Energy Landscape

David Breecker
Microgrid Systems Laboratory
Small-scale integrated energy systems are becoming an increasingly common feature of the renewable energy landscape. Microgrids offer a high degree of resilience to utility outages caused by extreme weather events, ageing assets, or attacks on grid infrastructure, by disconnecting from the bulk grid and operating autonomously. They increase the availability of renewable energy as well as being a solution for energy poverty.
 
 

Zero: The Climate Race podcast – In the next three years, 1TW of solar power will be added to the global grid and competition is driving solar prices even lower. And after years of innovation in China, Japan and Germany, the U.S. is finally getting in the game in a major way through its IRA which offers incentives to manufacture cleantech in the U.S. In early 2023, the South Korean company QCells announced it would build a domestic supply chain in the U.S. to gain access to enormous tax credits. But in a global marketplace, is this worth doing? Despite solar’s potential, manufacturing its parts has never been a reliable business.

In this episode, Akshat talks to Jenny Chase of BloombergNEF and an expert on the solar industry about its boom/bust cycle, why solar’s growth means electricity may soon be free during the day, and what QCells is up against. We also hear from Lindsay Cherry of QCells about how the company will achieve its ambitious goal to build a solar supply chain from scratch.

Additional Articles

How to Invest Sustainably - Divest - Reinvest - Pressure the Rest by Carbon Collective Investing

The Climate Pricing Gap

Zach Stein
Carbon Collective Investing
The economic tailwinds are behind the clean energy transition. Climate change is a glaring risk on the horizon that should be impossible to ignore. But like so much of society, the stock market is stuck in Don’t Look Up mode. Asset managers can impactfully change the narrative around sustainable and climate-focused investing, while fulfilling fiduciary duty.
The Drawdown Roadmap--TedX Detroit

Project Drawdown: Working to Halt Climate Change

Rebekah Moan
Climate & Capital Media
The world is in a race between two very different futures, according to Project Drawdown’s executive director Dr. Jonathan Foley. The world will be a bleak one where we let climate change go unabated and the effects get worse and worse or one where we don’t let climate change go unabated and we build a better, more sustainable and equitable world.
Ceres Releases Annual Climate Risk Scorecard

Ceres Releases Annual Climate Risk Scorecard

The new scorecard by the Ceres Accelerator for Sustainable Capital Markets shows how 10 federal financial regulators have implemented key actions to address the financial risks of climate change. There is still much more work to do addressing these risks with the same level of ambition and urgency as their global counterparts.
Environmental Finance Sustainable Investment Awards 2023

Sunwealth 2023 ESG Fixed Income Fund of the Year

Recently, Environmental Finance named Sunwealth’s Solar Impact Fund their 2023 ESG Fixed Income Fund of the Year. This recognition is part of Environmental Finance’s 2023 Sustainable Investment Awards – a global initiative that seeks to recognize fund and asset managers focused on ESG and sustainability.
Proof of Peak Natural Gas by Danny Kennedy Nexus new Energy

Proof of Peak Natural Gas but Climate Innovation Funding is Still Challenging

Danny Kennedy
New Energy Nexus
We’re using a record amount of electricity here on Earth but while emissions are up, the energy mix is changing significantly. Indeed, wind and solar were up 19% year-on-year from 2021, whereas coal was up just 1.1% and natural gas use actually plateaued. As a result, the energy we use now has the lowest carbon emissions ever.
GMs vision for a more sustainable and equitable future by Kristen Siemen

The Next 30 Years: GM’s Vision for a More Sustainable and Equitable Future

Kristen Siemen
General Motors
From the 2022 Archives – For GM, the pandemic became an opportunity for company-wide innovation. With the development and launch of numerous EVs, we showed ourselves and the world just how agile and creative we could be, even during a challenging time for everyone across the globe. Today, we’re using what we’ve learned to propel forward our vision of an all-electric, more sustainable and more inclusive future.

 
X