Green Investment Boom Gets Traction: Fund Promises $10 Billion for Clean Energy

The private investment fund Ceres, a group of institutional investors, has promised to devote $10 billion to investment in clean energy sources. The news comes as 3 of the world’s major oil companies call for coordinated policy on how to face climate change, constrain emissions, and a couple of months after 150 global corporations asked for a major boost in subsidized research into transitioning to clean energy technologies.

The Financial Times reports “A group of nearly 50 institutional investors has pledged to invest at least $10bn (£5.1bn) in environmental technologies and to incorporate ‘green’ standards in investment decisions”. The fund’s president, Mindy Lubber, said during the press conference at UN Headquarters in New York, “This action plan reflects the many investment opportunities that exist today to put a dent in global warming pollution, build profits and benefit the global economy”.

The cost of the climate change burden is increasingly on the minds of corporate leaders, financiers and investors, and the glittering potential of economic windfall in pioneering the green economy is catching the eyes of investors and political leaders. Bio-ethanol, a crop-based fuel source, considered cleaner than fossil fuels, and having the benefit of being a renewable fuel source, has shown tremendous potential for financial growth.

The Daily Green reported yesterday that:

Today, Deer & Co. reported $5.2 billion in first-quarter profits, 55% higher than expected, because it is providing farm equipment to farms that are making record investments.

Monsanto, the maker of genetically modified corn and soy seeds, saw its stock jump nearly 200% in a year, as its sales grew 36%.

Mosaic, the world’s largest phosphate fertilizer producer, saw its profit quadruple.

Chemical giant DuPont saw its corn sales volume increase 52% recently, and expects double-digit earnings growth in 2008.

The value of the U.S. farm economy is expected to hit a record in 2008, $144.1 billion, 38% above the 10-year average.

There are serious drawbacks to increasing reliance on ethanol: burning organic materials or extracts also emits carbon, albeit in lower doses; food prices have been soaring across the world as a result of shifting agricultural production to meet demand for bio-fuels; land-use policy may not keep pace with the rush to exploit the economic boom ethanol presents; worldwide, arable land and water for irrigation are already severely strained, not able to meet food production needs in a sustainable way.

So it is of paramount importance that new funding is being offered for new research into potential alternative methods of truly “clean” energy, meaning fuel sources or electricity production methods that require no combustion and emit no harmful toxins or heat-trapping gases into the environment.

In July 2006, Sentido.tv [a project of Hot Spring's publisher], reported that:

The global wind-generation resource has been estimated at 72 terawatts, 40 times the entire global demand for 2000. Eliminating peat bogs and other highly vulnerable ecosystems from that resource potential will cut into the global capacity, but at 40 times demand, or 20 times or even at 10 times, there is clearly room to work with.

Finding the right combination of resources, in terms of cost-effective construction and maintenance, infrastructure development and ugrading, and stabilizing the role of consumers in both production and usage (solar and wind energy permit fitted individual homes to become production mechanisms expanding grid potential), will allow for the creation of a far more efficient and by extension, economically viable and sustainable energy market. This could be extended to a global scale, if investment accurately discerns and follows opportunity.

• Financial Times: “Oil groups urge clarity on tackling emissions [inset: Green energy to get $10 billion boost]“
• Guardian: “Investment fund giants demand 90% reduction in carbon emissions”
• Daily Green: “Want Real Economic Stimulus? Jump-Start the Green Collar Economy”
• Quipu Economic Forum: “The 12-year Sea Change, the Green Economy”
• Ceres: “Investors and Environmentalists for Sustainable Prosperity”
• Quipu [from EPI]: “Why Ethanol Production Will Drive World Food Prices Even Higher in 2008″
• Sentido.tv: “WORKING OUT THE KINKS IN RENEWABLE ENERGY’S GREATEST PROMISE”
• Ceres: “Climate Investment OpEd by Ceres President Mindy Lubber in Pensions & Investments magazine on 9/19/05″