The financial risk of carbon liabilities, a need for better management control over carbon data, and new government regulations in a number of countries, will will compel CFOs to invest in carbon management software in the coming year. This is the main conclusion of the report, The Business Case For Carbon Management Software, from the research firm Verdantix. The report analyzes the business case for investing in carbon software from vendors like CarbonView, Carbon Hub, ESS, Greenstone Carbon Management, Hara, IHS, PE International, SAP and SAS.
According to a new report release by New Energy Finance, the volume of carbon credits bought and sold in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in the United States matched the entire volume of credits traded on the international carbon market in the second quarter of this year. The number of carbon credits sold under the CDM in Europe, in the second quarter of this year, increased by 25% on the first quarter. However the volume of credited traded on the secondary market decreased by 15% during this period. Most of this decline was due to reductions in the volume of future contracts, possibly in reaction to the higher volume of European Emission Allowances now on the markets as a result of the economic downturn. In stark contrasts, the number of carbon credits traded in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative in the Northeast region here in the States, increased by 319% over the first quarter of this year.
The creation of a Green Bank will encourage a long overdue integrated and strategic approach to clean-energy innovation, efficiency, and deployment in the United States. In combination with Senate action on clean energy—legislation that provides incentives for the research, development, and deployment of clean-energy technologies, and a market-based pollution-reduction program that reduces greenhouse gas emissions and reinforces a predictable price signal on carbon—the Green Bank will open credit markets, motivate private business to invest again, and create good, clean-energy jobs here at home.
The alternative energy industry — the green business — is about to ramp up its hiring, with the next year likely to show an increase in demand, according to U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. All signs truly point in this direction. In addition to the development of the green energy business over the past several years, the amount of capital flowing into fledgling companies in this space is growing rapidly.
New Investment in clean energy worldwide rallied in the second quarter of 2009, reaching $24.4 billion, according to figures published recently by New Energy Finance. The data, which is based in actual deal and project transactions, show that during the second quarter, there was a big improvement on the first quart of 2009, when investment was just $13.3 billion. Despite this dramatic increase in investment, the investments of the second quarter were 37% below the investment amount from the same quarter last year, when the figure was $36.2 billion.
The market for voluntarily offsetting carbon emissions doubled between 2007 and 2008 to reach $700m. With forecasts suggesting that the market could double again to 2012 this new sector is now attracting the attention of more serious investors and traders, as well as more companies looking to offset their emissions. But despite all the excitement around these projections there has been no systematic analysis of where the demand in this new market will actually come from, if indeed at all. Nobody has stopped to ask the simple questions “why do organizations voluntarily offset their emissions?” “how much value do they get out of it”, and “when does carbon setting work and when doesn’t it work?“
The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), the European investors’ forum for collaboration on climate change, recently published its second annual report which audits the investment practices of signatories to the Investor Statement on Climate Change. The report, conducted by Mercer, highlights significant progress on climate change, made in 2008, among asset owners and asset managers, who in total represent €2 trillion in assets under management. The research shows that institutions are paying greater attention to climate change, with 75% of asset owners and over 80% of asset managers referencing climate change in their investment policies.
SustainableBusiness.com recently announced its 2009 Sustainable Business 20 (SB20) List: The World’s Top Sustainable Stocks. The 8th Annual SB20 List consists of 20 public companies that are leading the way to a sustainable economy. The list is presented in the Progressive Investor newsletter, published by SustainableBusiness.com, which tracks and analyzes green stocks. To choose the 20 companies, SustainableBusiness.com works with a group of judges, who are among the most respected green stock analysts in the world. Judges select companies across the range of green business sectors – solar, wind, geothermal, smart grid, water, food, agriculture, green building and transport. In addition, over a third of the companies populating this year’s SB20 List are “Corporate Pioneers” – companies with conventional products and services that are greening their product lines.
New investment in the worldwide clean energy sector in the second quarter of 2009 has already surpassed that in the first quarter by a third, with several weeks still to go in Q2, according to analysts at New Energy Finance. However, this is in comparison to a disastrous first quarter, which saw investment down 44% from the fourth quarter of 2008, and down 53% from the peak in the first quarter of 2008. Overall, new investment is expected to finish 2009 between US$95 billion and $115 billion, a drop of between 26% and 39% on last year’s total of $155 billion, says New Energy Finance.
