In spite of all the negative news coming out of the press (politicians not showing leadership, parliaments frozen, the financial sector reluctant to embrace so called “extra financial” investments), we continue to see good news in the impact investing space. We continuously see positive signals with regards to market growth, and movement towards dealing with Climate Risk and investing in ESG and Impact.
As of July 2012, $4.1 trillion has been privately invested in a greener, global economy, since 2007.
Renewable Energy as a sector is benefitting from reduced cost and greater efficiencies as well as from changing attitudes toward fossil fuels and diminished returns on investments. Green Construction is increasing significantly as the demolition subsector takes down outdated infrastructure. The Efficiency sector is adding material and water efficiencies boosting this sector.
As the world continues to invest at least $1 trillion per year until 2020, we are leaving the fossil fueled industrial era behind and are entering a new solar age – and not a minute to soon.
The August 2012 Supplement to the February 2012 report focuses on investments companies are making in green research and development (R&D). Click here to download The Green Transition Scoreboard®
The year 2012 was an inflection point for the worldwide green transition, with $4.1 trillion of private investments tracked in this report. Technology and innovation such as in electricity generation and transport began forcing structural changes and rethinking of business models, urban design and development toward integrated systemic approaches – still unreported in mainstream media. Global policy makers, businesses and civic society began realizing that environmental, social and human capital must be assessed and integrated into financial markets in order to achieve equitable and sustainable forms of development. The output of Rio+20 was an unprecedented reintegration of human knowledge resulting in new global shared goals and paths transitioning 191 member countries toward low-carbon, cleaner, greener, information-richer economies. Awareness grew of localization as a key principle for redesigning industrial methods, agriculture, infrastructure, sustainable communities.
