Investing in companies with a green track record (Climate Change, Solar Power)

BUSINESS OF GREEN

Investing in companies with a green track record

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

ROME: For most of my too-busy life I thought little about my carbon footprint: disposable diapers and paper plates for my kids. Fly to a meeting, instead of a taking a train. Toss the bottles, the old printer cartridges. Whoosh . . . gone with the trash. But in the past couple of years of writing about the environment, I have reformed my ways. I have become a militant recycler - pulling cans that have been missorted out of kitchen garbage. I air-dry clothes, instead of using a dryer.

So I suppose it was only a matter of time before I started thinking about green investments. Let's be frank: Given the size of my portfolio, I will have more of an impact on global warming by planting a tree in my courtyard and recycling cans of diet cola than by moving my paltry sum to companies that care about climate change. But in the name of consistency and doing my bit, I decided to have a look. Interest in sustainable investing has taken off in the past couple of years - as have the number of newsletters, mutual funds and advisers offering to help pick stocks in companies with a green track record. And companies are clearly taking note of the interest: "If the endgame is changing corporate behavior, then the folks who have the most leverage are the investors - the people who supply companies with the cash to do what they do," said Matthew Kiernan, chief executive of Innovest, a Toronto-based consulting firm. Cliff Feigenbaum, editor and founder of Green Money, a magazine that advises readers on green investing, said that when he started the magazine in 1992, companies "would ask us to leave their offices; now they're begging us to come in."

But in a world where all companies are claiming green credentials - green airlines! green oil companies! - it's often hard to pick. "There is light green and dark green," Feigenbaum says. Fortunately, there are an increasing number of tools to use. One simple but blunt tool is SustainableBusiness.com's World Top Sustainable Stocks, compiled by KLD Research and Analytics in Boston. The most recent list of 20 includes a wide range of offerings, including Group Danone (France), Land Securities (Britain), Nike, Royal Phillips Electronics, and Chipotle Mexican Grill.

"There is greenhouse gas generated in every sector and so there is carbon risk from every sector of the economy," said Thomas Kuh, a managing director at KLD. "You might look at the financial services sector and say 'what does that have to do with climate change?' But the loans banks chose to make have a carbon impact, and they own a lot of real estate. Is it energy efficient? That has an impact too."

He added: "The state of the art is improving all the time and we have much better tools to use. So it has become easier for investors to get this information." Climate Counts is another group that evaluates dozens of companies in different industries, to distinguish who's excelling climate-wise: In the most recent ratings, CBS gets a 0 ("stuck") while News Corp. gets a 57 ("striding"). Amazon gets a 0 while Yahoo scores a 46. Apple deserves a 2, while IBM brings in a 70. Likewise Trucost, in London, perform a yearly carbon footprint ranking of British investment funds.

The most exhaustive information (if not the most cute or user-friendly) is undoubtedly to be found on the Web site of the Carbon Disclosure Project, a London-based research initiative that requests information from thousands of the world's largest companies on behalf of a coalition of investors. More than 1,300 international companies responded to CDP's annual questionnaire last year, and many have included specific information about their carbon emissions and how they intend to reduce them.

"The beautiful thing about climate change is that you can measure it in term of tons of CO2, which is what we ask," said Paul Dickinson, head of the project. "So you can choose to invest in things that produce less CO2." Equally telling, he says, is observing which companies decline to answer CDP's questions. When you look at CDP's reports, some companies match their green image and advertising. But some companies with cool corporate images score badly. Apple only partly responded to the Carbon Disclosure Project's questionnaire, failing to provide the central item: A tally of the company's carbon emissions. Amazon, which generated emissions as it ships books around the world, didn't answer at all.

To be continue in other article...

(Jakarta, Kamis 21 February 2008, 07.39 pagi)

Re-publish by Jacob Paradox from link (www.routers.com),(www.iht.com), (www.routers.com), (www.nytimes.com)