Profit is just the beginning of potential motivations and focuses for investing. Many available green investment opportunities can yield a sizable and consistent profit for your personal and business endeavors. However, when you take into consideration how to invest your funds in a sustainable and green manner, you can make positive social and environmental changes in addition to growing your portfolio. In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of climate change in green investing, what investing in climate change and green companies involves, and some of the top investing options available.
Investing for Climate Change
When you give support to a company or organization with financial investments, you have the power to be a force for positive change in the world. If you support companies and organizations that provide environmentally friendly products and services or have environmentally-friendly and sustainable practices, you are promoting positive change in the world and in the environment. You have the power to help build a more prosperous and sustainable world through your role in global economics. You also need not choose between making a financial profit from your investments and investing sustainably, which is a common myth about sustainable investing.
Investing for climate change is one of the many top ways you can effect positive environmental change with your investments. Record summer heatwaves, rising sea levels, as well as widespread droughts, wildfires, storms, and floods are all forms of human-induced climate change. Climate investing or investing for climate change specifically involves efforts to support the businesses and technologies that transition away from carbon-intensive industries, fossil fuels, and other harmful production behaviors, and work toward more renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind power and environmentally friendly products such as electric vehicles.
Investing in Green Companies
Climate investments reside in the area of environmental, social, and governance investing, or ESG investing. When a company is defined as green, it can have various business practices and efforts that align with environmental efforts, as these efforts include fighting climate change, seeking alternatives to harmful production methods, seeking renewable energy sources, and other initiatives. However, when you seek to maximize your green investing efforts, it’s important to be wary of the available companies. Some companies that have funds classified as ESG can include money from gas and oil firms, and may not be entirely green in practices and support.
The monitoring and regulation of ESG funds are still in their early stages, as environmental activism and green investing continue to grow in popularity and green companies become more numerous. The SEC is still building a framework for handling these funds, so it can be complicated to determine a given company’s green practices. When looking to invest in green companies, you want to look for those that have the most eco-friendly products and support, the least amount of environmentally harmful practices and associations, and express the honest desire to continue developing eco-friendly products, practices, and support.
Top Green Companies
When seeking out a sustainable and green company to support, you can validate claims by looking for specific attributes. A genuinely sustainable operation means the business can maintain itself at a certain level of sustainability, operating with an honest intention of leaving communities, stakeholders, and the world better off as a result of its existence. Look for ethical and transparent sourcing of materials, waste-conscious packaging, environmentally-conscious manufacturing practices, diverting landfill waste when products expire, and options for shipping that negate a carbon footprint.
Once you know some specifics of what to look for and focus on when investing in green companies, you can begin to narrow down the different companies you’re considering increasing your support for. In 2022, some of the top green companies to consider supporting are Seventh Generation, A Good Company, New Belgium Brewing, and Pela.
Seventh Generation
As a personal care, paper, and cleaning business, Seventh Generation focuses on eco-friendly practices since 1988. It seeks to transform the planet into a sustainable, healthy, and equitable place to live for the next seven generations.
A Good Company
The mission of A Good Company is to transform e-commerce for increased environmental sustainability. The company creates sustainable, everyday products with full transparency. A Good Company provides openness about operations and product details.
New Belgium Brewing
As the fourth-largest US craft brewery, New Belgium Brewing remains committed to eco-friendly practices since its founding. Amongst its core values is kindling environmental, social, and cultural change. This core value remains present in its business model.
Pela
Beginning in 2010, the founder of Pela became aware of the extensive damage that plastic pollution can cause in ocean areas. As a company, Pela continues to take steps toward making plastic-free, sustainable products.
Top Climate Change Investments
If you’re looking into more specific climate change investments, there are also numerous worthy candidates for your support. Some of the top climate change investments to consider increasing your support for include Enphase Energy, Brookfield Renewable Partners, SolarEdge Technologies Inc., and Sunrun.
Enphase Energy
An energy technology firm that specializes in unifying storage, power generation, control, and communication functions, Enphase Energy has one of the most innovative microinverters worldwide. By using sunlight alone, microinverters convert solar energy into usable electricity.
Brookfield Renewable Partners
A world leader in the area of green energy, Brookfield Renewable Partners is among the largest providers of hydroelectric energy, a fantastic substitute for fossil fuels. The enterprise also has wind farms.
SolarEdge Technologies Inc.
Since 2006, SolarEdge Technologies has been a market leader in climate change efforts, specifically in the solar inverter market. The company has one of the best climate change stocks worldwide.
Sunrun
Specializing in domestic solar power, Sunrun produces, designs, and installs solar energy equipment. The business is also renowned for its battery storage systems.
Green Investing for Climate Change
The importance of climate change in green investing couldn’t be overstated. Begin your journey to investing for climate change and other environmental efforts today with EGÉA SRI.
