From Dr. Hazel Henderson:

The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ from ETHICAL MARKETS, the independent global multi-media company, tracks total private investment in companies growing the green economy since 2007.  The mid-2010 update shows a rise to $1,646,719,228,993 from $1.24 trillion at the end of December 2009.  The report was released today by founder-CEO HAZEL HENDERSON, D.Sc.Hon, FRSA , futurist and author of Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy (Chelsea Green, 2006).  Dr. Henderson has advised the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering, tracking these technologies since the 1970s.

Dr. Henderson, creator of the GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ (GTS), stressed its vision and purpose, “Our mission of fostering ethical markets and growing the green economy worldwide is shared by millions of entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers, venture capitalists, investors, pension funds, as well as civic groups, academics, students and employees of incumbent industries in the fossilized sectors in many countries.  This requires the revolution in corporate and national accounts we have long advocated – now underway by the new International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) steered by 33 organizations, including the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Principles of Responsible Investing and many other pension funds and accounting bodies worldwide, with the backing of the International and US Accounting Standards Boards.”

As Matthew Kiernan, founder of Innovest and founder-CEO of Inflection Point Capital Management, author of Investing in a Sustainable World, explains, “The GTS makes a uniquely useful contribution to the necessary macro-economic transition in at least two important respects: it adopts a much more comprehensive and therefore effective working definition of a green economy than is usually the case, and it also provides a robust and consistent framework for measuring our progress towards it.“ 

“The GTS is an important milestone in measuring the increasing economic viability of the CleanTech universe,” says Stuart Valentine, president of Iowa Progressive Asset Management, a leading US investment firm.  “Since 1987, we have guided our investors towards companies leading the growing green economy: the Sustainability Sector.”

Henderson adds, “The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ measures concrete progress as we traverse this great global transition from the Industrial Era to the information-rich, cleaner, healthier and greener Solar Age.”  Reports confirm this, such as the July 2010 study Solar and Nuclear Costs – the Historic Crossover by economist John O. Blackburn, former Duke University Chancellor, which finds that solar energy is now cheaper than nuclear.

Helen Rake, principal for Collins Capital Management, Inc., in Jacksonville agrees: “The Green Transition Scoreboard™ gives our ESG clients a true barometer of significant change going on in corporations around the globe.” 

Ethical Markets, its partners Mercado Etico, the World Business Academy and the thousands of groups linking to Ethical Markets see this Green Transition as inevitable, viable and achievable, by scaling up existing technologies and energy efficiency gains.  This website links to many studies, computer models and reports which indicate that investing $1 trillion every year until 2020 can ramp up material and energy efficiencies, reduce costs of wind, solar, geothermal, water, sustainable land-use and forestry, which together with smart infrastructure, transport, building and urban re-design, can accelerate the Green Transition worldwide. 

Timothy Nash, M.Sc., Ethical Markets’ Senior Advisor and Director of Sustainability Research, compiles and analyzes the Green Transition Scoreboard™.  “The mid-2010 total of over $1.6 trillion puts G-20 countries on track to reach our 2020 target of $10 trillion.  This $10 trillion goal is much less than the $23 trillion U.S. taxpayers are liable, including bailouts since 2008 (www.sigtarp.gov) and only represents 10% of global pension and institutional portfolio assets of some $120 trillion,” says Nash. “This figure has outpaced even the most optimistic expectations for investments in the green economy, providing tangible evidence that investors are shifting their assets and that momentum is building for a green economic transition.”

Henderson and Nash share the hope that this data and the shift to “triple bottom line,” ESG accounting standards will encourage pension funds to follow the lead of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) to shift more of their portfolios away from risky investments in the fossilized sectors and commodities speculation to more direct investments in growing the green sectors.

Nash adds, “Our new totals are broken down into five categories: Renewable Energy; Efficiency and Green Construction; Cleantech; Smart Grid; and Corporate R&D. (Click here for report).  We welcome all enquiries!”

Ethical Markets Executive Director Rosalinda Sanquiche, M.Sc., says “Individual investors see the green economy growing on Main Street.  We welcome non-profit groups to access the full report by installing our GTS icon with a link to www.greentransitionscoreboard.com on their websites, free of charge for the next 30 days.”

Contacts:

·       Dr. Hazel Henderson, President, Ethical Markets Media, www.ethicalmarkets.com, hazel.henderson@ethicalmarkets.com, 904-829-3140

·       Rosalinda Sanquiche, Executive Director, Ethical Markets Media, rosalinda.sanquiche@ethicalmarkets.com, 904-826-1381

·       Timothy Jack Nash, Ethical Markets Media Senior Advisor and Director of Sustainability Research; President, Strategic Sustainable Investments, tim.nash@ethicalmarkets.com, 416-821-9179

·        

St. Augustine, FL – August 3, 2010 –

Following the start of the industrial revolution, in 1824 Jean-Baptiste Fourier discovered a global warming “greenhouse” effect and in 1896 Swedish and American scientists independently concluded that CO2 was the likely cause of global warming.

Nearly 90 years later in 1987 the WMO and UNEP established a scientific advisory body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which issued its First Assessment Report in 1990, finding that the planet had warmed by 0.5°C in the past century and would rise further by 0.3°C per decade in the 21st century, accompanied by global mean sea level rises of 6 cm per decade.

In 2007 the IPCC released its Fourth Assessment Report, concluding with 90% confidence that human activity is causing climate change and that “Global GHG emissions due to human activities have grown since pre-industrial times with an increase of 70% between 1970 and 2004.”

In 2008 our planet was estimated to contain 385 ppm (parts per million) of CO2 in its atmosphere, the highest concentration of CO2 for more than 630,000 years. This is widely agreed to be due to human industrial advancement, specifically the production and consumption of power from the burning of fossil fuels that are estimated to have caused around 85% of CO2 emissions.

It is known that global temperature increase must be kept within 2°C to prevent an irreversible chain reaction of greenhouse gas release from forests, peat bogs, Siberian permafrost and oceans, which would change the planet’s ecosystems irrevocably. To ensure this temperature rise does not occur concentration of CO2 must not pass 450 ppm, which means reducing CO2 emissions to 60% below 1990 levels before 2030.

Source:  http://blog.willowrivers.com/

The Dodd-Frank bill, like all major pieces of legislation, is tailor made for politicians. The rhetoric rains down like ticker tape, from supporters and detractors alike. Some might call this the “toughest restrictions on the financial industry since the Great Depression,” as the Washington Post did.

Others might lambaste it as a gross regulatory overreach that will kill American jobs and send the banking business overseas.  The truth of course is obscured somewhere in the middle. You could take every major plank and argue it to death.

For example, some think the new consumer protection agency, which should come to life quickly, is a significant development. Others lament that car loans, as rife with fraud as any other type of loan, was put beyond the reach of the agency.

The Volcker Rule sounds good in theory, but even Paul Volcker notes it was significantly watered down.

So all in all, we’d have to sound two cheers for financial reform. Here are seven reasons why it can’t be three cheers. The big winners really are the lobbyists. They fought hard for the industry, and won more than a few victories. They will stay employed as they work to influence regulators over the long haul, as the bill leaves much to be decided. Some of the most important protections will not kick in until the current administration is long gone. When the spotlight dims, the lobbyists might really have their way. And we might never hear about it.

Related Articles:Financial reform passage a certainty nowVolcker rates reform effort a BA lot of decisions to be made after Dodd-Frank passageReform bill grows to 2,300 pages, jury still out

From Jim Kim on FierceFinance.com

Norges Bank Investment Management, the arm of the Norwegian central bank which manages the assets of the NOK2.7trn (€347bn) Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, has enhanced its website to allow users to search its equity and fixed income holdings and voting records.

As well as offering continuous updates on the fund’s market value, NBIM says there’s also a new search device enabling users to find information on the fund’s holdings and voting records “by region, country and company”. The fund owns around 1% of the world’s listed companies.

The development enables readers to see the giant fund’s equity holdings in, say, China.

A quick glance through the data reveals that the fund has 941 investments in the country, worth around NOK23.9bn (€3bn). An analysis throws up some interesting snippets, such as the fact that it has 55 investments in the Cayman Islands worth some NOK4.5bn (€556m).

For the whole story on Responsible-Investor.com see:

Giant Norway fund manager puts searchable holdings and voting data on website

Many SRI Funds Are Outperforming Benchmarks in 2009
The Appleseed Fund continues its strong performance among domestic equity funds, while Pax World posts highest return on investment among fixed-income products.