The Economic Case for Fossil Fuel Free Investing
We really loved Betsy Moszeter’s article, “The Economic Case for Fossil Fuel Free Investing,” published in the November/December ’17 issue of Investments & Wealth Monitor. Moszeter is Partner & COO at Green Alpha Advisors, a responsible investment management firm in Boulder, Co. She is also good friend and colleague of us here at Earth Equity Advisors. Read the excerpt below and click through for the full content.
The Economic Case for Fossil Fuel Free Investing
Investment industry practitioners and academics increasingly are talking about the financial and economic reasons why an investment advisor should offer clients investment strategies that are void of fossil fuel extractors, utilities, pipelines, and service providers. As advisors evaluate the economic and financial risk presented by fossil fuels, it’s also necessary to consider the resulting investment opportunities presented by companies innovating around the growing renewables industry. Even former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Commissioner Bevis Longstreth is working hard to educate investors and investment professionals about why it’s entirely within one’s fiduciary duty to rethink the current and nearfuture investing paradigm of the sector.
In his article, “The Financial Case for Divestment of Fossil Fuel Companies by Endowment Fiduciaries,”1 Longstreth writes, “At some point down the road towards the red light of 2 Degrees Centigrade … it is entirely plausible, even predictable, that continuing to hold equities in fossil fuel companies will be ruled negligence.” Who knows more about potential negligence and what falls within one’s duciary duty than a former SEC commissioner? Let’s explore a few of the factors leading him and many others to recommend that invest ment portfolios be divested from fossil fuel companies.
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