{"id":1139,"date":"2009-12-04T09:54:57","date_gmt":"2009-12-04T09:54:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/astraea.net\/blog\/?p=1139"},"modified":"2009-12-18T10:00:25","modified_gmt":"2009-12-18T10:00:25","slug":"over-1-trillion-invested-in-green-since-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.astraea.net\/blog\/over-1-trillion-invested-in-green-since-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Over $ 1 trillion invested in green since 2007"},"content":{"rendered":"

A step in the right direction.\u00a0 But a long way to go. That’s about as much as Exxon’s revenues over 2 years.<\/p>\n

Washington, DC \u2013 December\u00a0 4, 2009<\/em> \u2013 Ethical Markets Media<\/a> (USA and Brazil) and The Climate Prosperity Alliance<\/a> today launched their Global Climate Prosperity Scoreboard\u00ae which tracks private investment in companies growing the green economy globally.\u00a0 This new, never before reported number, showing $1,248,740,645,993.00 (over $1.248 trillion) in total investment since 2007, indicates how investors and entrepreneurs are leading governments in promoting sustainable growth.\u00a0 The scoreboard totals investments in solar, wind, geothermal, ocean\/hydro, energy efficiency and storage, and agriculture.\u00a0 We purposefully omitted nuclear, “clean coal,” carbon capture and sequestration, and biofuels.\u00a0 We indicate which investments have been publically announced and committed by major companies for 2010 and beyond.<\/p>\n

Dr. Marc A. Weiss, Chairman and CEO of Global Urban Development and Chair of the Climate Prosperity Alliance, said, “This $1.248 trillion of investments are not only from North America and Europe, but also from China, India, Brazil and other developing countries.\u00a0 They indicate that the private sector currently is ahead of governments in understanding that during the 21st century, people, places, and organizations can only get richer by becoming greener and only earn more money by using fewer resources and reusing more. Private capital investment is now leading globally in promoting technological innovation and resource efficiency that will accelerate environmentally and socially sustainable industrial growth and economic development throughout the world.”<\/p>\n

Dr. Hazel Henderson, futurist, author of Ethical Markets: Growing the Green Economy<\/span> (Chelsea Green, 2006) and president of Ethical Markets Media, serves as vice-chair of the Climate Prosperity Alliance together with vice-chairs C.S. Kiang (China), Rodrigo Loures (Brazil), Lawrence Bloom (UK) and James Nixon (USA).\u00a0 Dr. Henderson said, “Ethical Markets Media’s mission is reforming markets and growing the green economy globally.\u00a0 Our Global Climate Prosperity Scoreboard\u00ae will be updated regularly to show progress toward the ecologically sustainable economies that are vital to our common future.\u00a0 Societies are transitioning from the 300-year old, polluting, fossil-fueled Industrial Era to the advanced technologies of the information-rich Solar Age.”<\/p>\n

The Climate Prosperity Alliance, a volunteer, global network of financiers, businesses, economic development authorities, scientists and NGOs is based on earth systems science, showing the widespread evidence of destruction caused by the now-obsolete technologies of the combustion-based Industrial Revolution and its extraction and exploitation of the Earth’s capital<\/strong>: oil, coal, gas, minerals, forests, water, land and biodiversity.\u00a0 Human societies are now gradually re-industrializing our economies using the Earth’s income<\/strong> \u2013 the renewable energies of sun, wind, ocean\/hydro, geothermal and non-agricultural biomass \u2013 based on human capital<\/strong>: new knowledge of planetary processes and ecosystems, designing our economies with Nature.<\/p>\n

The Climate Prosperity Alliance uses the Climate Solutions 2 computer model of Australia’s Climate Risk Pty., showing how $1 trillion invested every year for the next 10 years can assure the global transition to sustainable prosperity and job growth.\u00a0 This $10 trillion is less than the bailouts of failed banks in the USA and Europe and less than 10% of the world’s pension and institutional funds of $120 trillion.\u00a0 Institutional fund managers can shift 10% of their assets away from hedge funds, risky derivatives and commodity speculation to real investments in a greener global economy, thereby assuring their beneficiaries a healthier future.<\/p>\n

“While we encourage progress toward directly investing in growing the green economy, we urge government officials meeting in Copenhagen December 7-14, 2009, to follow the lead of these private investors that have already committed $1.248 trillion.\u00a0 We applaud our pension fund colleagues of the UN Principles of Responsible Investing who have joined in pledges to allocate more of their members’ $19 trillion of assets into similar green companies.\u00a0 Now, governments must go beyond arguing over targets, caps and carbon-trading \u2013 and follow the lead of China and the USA in their comprehensive plan for cooperation on clean energy and climate change.\u00a0 Such a general agreement in Copenhagen can promote and underwrite more direct investments and growth of the green economy,” said Dr. Henderson.<\/p>\n

The new Global Climate Prosperity Scoreboard\u00ae is researched and compiled by the Ethical Markets Media expert team: Timothy Nash, M.Sc., principal, Strategic Sustainable Investments, Toronto; Rachel Tubman, M.Sc., senior researcher\/futurist; assisted by The Cleantech Group and members of the Ethical Markets Sustainability Research Group.\u00a0 As these investments increase, the scoreboard will track totals, providing investors and governments with tangible evidence of the growing green economy.<\/p>\n

Contacts:<\/p>\n