Nestlé: Going Green Swiss Style
As a Peace Corps volunteer on islands in Micronesia it was a delightful to adopt the islanders’ use of banana leaves for everything from baking a sweet potato to serving a picnic lunch to storing leftovers. The giant banana trees in the garden were so convenient. Moreover, the banana leaf could not be beat for environmental friendliness. Once used, the leaves were tossed aside to become mulch for the garden.
Of course, back in the U.S.A. it is not practical to rely on banana leaves to wrap a Big Mac at MacDonald’s or ship electronics from Amazon.com. Nonetheless, there must be something better than...
Water Supply with a Latin Twist
by Debra Fiakas, CFA
Depending upon how you string the words together, it is possible to make Latin America sound like the world’s water fountain or the location of a putrid pond out of which hapless citizens ladle their drinking water.
Try these lofty words.
Four the world’s largest rivers and four of the world’s largest freshwater lakes can be found in the Latin America region with a run-off area encompassing 5,470 cubic miles. The rainwater and snowmelt running into these water bodies represents 20% of the world’s run-off. By itself Brazil is home to 20% of the water resources of the entire world.
Here...
Skin In The Game
Specialty retailers are also joining the packaging revolution. REN Clean Skincare is a good example of a retailer that is making environmentally-friendly packaging part of its offering. The company kicked off the campaign with a splashing Earth Day celebration featuring its new partner, the Surfrider Foundation. The campaign was aimed at making REN customers aware of the need to conserve water and keep beaches clean and plastic-free.
The company is selling some of its skincare products in bottles made from plastic reclaimed from the ocean. The bottle is part of REN’s Clean to Planet initiative to become a 100% zero waste company by 2021. The bottle...
GE’s Mark Vachon: “Gas is massive”
Marc Gunther How’s GE’s ecomagination going? I put that question today to Mark Vachon, who is vice president for ecomagination at General Electric (GE). He replied by talking about natural gas. “The large macro trend of gas is massive,” he said. “Our oil and gas business will be a huge beneficiary.” An abundance of shale gas in the U.S., and methane gas reserves in Australia present a wealth of opportunities for GE, which plays all along the supply chain for natural gas. “We’re a massive player in gas exploration,” Mark said. “We have a water business that can deal...
My Stock Picks for 2005
At my real job, a group of us have a yearly stock picking contest. Some years I have performed well, others have been terrible (last year my total performance for my picks was a miserable -13%.) The winner of 2004 was up over 50%. Her method, spread out the newspaper, take 3 M&M candies and throw them up in the air. She picked the 3 stocks the candies landed on. The rules of our little contest are simple. Pick three stocks that trade for over $5. We buy at the close on the first trading day of the...
A Climate of Injustice
For this post, a tad bit of shameless promotion for a friend. My former grad school roommate and good friend Brad Parks, who works at the Millennium Challenge Corporation in DC, co-authored a book on the asymmetry that exists between emerging countries' share of global greenhouse gas emissions and the price those countries will have to pay, not only monetarily but also in terms of health and quality of life, as the effects of climate change materialize. Brad put a tremendous amount of work into this and the few chapters that I had a chance to read...
The Top 25 Purchasers of Renewable Energy and Their Suppliers
The Energy Stock Blog points to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency list of the current top 25 purchasers of renewable energy, and their suppliers. From the release: Top 25 Partners are Partners whose annual green power purchase is the largest, and whose green power purchase has been completed. Their actions are helping drive the development of new renewable energy sources for electricity generation. Combined, their purchases amount to 3.3 million megawatt-hours (MWh) annually, which is approximately 75 percent of the green power commitments made by all Partners. These Top 25 Partners provide an example to their peers,...
Water Utilities Keeping The Flow In Cash Flow
Fiakas Water Utilities Keeping The Flow In Cash Flow by Debra Fiakas CFA After a long series of posts on suppliers of water infrastructure, from fire hydrants to filters and from taps to treatments, it is now time to look at the companies selling water. The majority of water utilities is owned by municipalities and is beyond the reach of investors. However, there is a clutch of publicly traded companies that peddle water as a business. Which water utilities make sense to return hungry and risk wary investors? A short...
Five Last Minute Gifts For The Environmental Anti-Materialist
What do you get for the person who hates stuff?
My family has this problem every year. As a somewhat rabid environmentalist, I think of stuff as part of the problem. I'm not a big fan of clutter, either. So I always have mixed feelings when I receive gifts. No matter how useful, I can't help but thinking about all the resources that were used to make it. Not to mention wondering where I'm going to put it.
You may have someone in your family who feels the same way, for whatever reason. Here are five of the best gifts I've...
The Purpose of this Site
I have been recently thinking to myself, "What is the purpose of this site." Originally I had grand plans about introducing people to this particular sector of stock investing. I think that alternative energy investing should be a part of your portfolio for several reasons. I feel we should support these companies so they can continue to grow and provide alternative ways to provide energy. I also feel that these companies are ideally poised for tremendous growth in the future as the technology matures. This growth usually means growth in the stock (and profits in your portfolio.) To...
Wells Fargo Publishes Report on Alternative Energy Investing
Joel Makower points to a special report published by Wells Fargo Private Client Services "Identifying the Opportunities in Alternative Energy" (PDF.) It is a good primer on alternative energy resources (hydro, wind, solar, hydrogen, biomass, and yes nuclear), along with an analysis of their respective advantages, disadvantages, and outlooks.
Lack of Posting
You may have noticed that I have not been posting to this website very frequently for the last couple of weeks. During this time I have been working very hard at my day job launching a redesigned website. Working 12+ hour days for the last couple of weeks has put a toll on my free time. But I'm glad to say that we launched the new site yesterday and I should be able to pick backup again soon. For those of you interested, here is a link to the new site that has taken all of my time....
Graphene Nanoplatlets
Applied Graphene Materials (AGM: LSE) has developed a process for high-volume production of graphene nanoplatelets or ‘stacks of two-dimensional graphene sheets that can be used in coatings, composites and polymers. The attributes of nanoplatelets are not as impressive as the single layer of carbon atoms that scientists work with on their laboratory benches. However, nanoplatelets ‘play’ better than single atoms, dispersing more easily into other materials. Applied’s management says the promise of graphene is better achieved by being practical in transferring its characteristics to other high value materials.
Applied’s graphene nanoplatelets are used in a range of products: paints, coatings, polymers, composites, thermal pastes, and lubricants. In...
Clean Tech Investing Report
Another excellent resource for investment information for Alternative/Clean/Green investing is Clean Break. If you haven't added Tyler's blog to your RSS aggregator, then you should. I point this out since there is a very interesting snippet in one of his recent posts about future projections for investment by the VC community. Cleantech Venture Network released its latest data on cleantech investing. In the second quarter of 2005 investments in cleantech grew to $369 million (U.S.), up 9 per cent from the first quarter. In the first half of 2005, investments have jumped 21 per...
Book Review: Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World (Geothermal + Efficiency)
Charles Morand Last Thursday, I reviewed two chapters from the recently published book "Investment Opportunities for a Low Carbon World"*. This post reviews two more. Geothermal Energy Alexander Richter, Glitnir Bank (now Íslandsbanki) Geothermal is one of the most interesting forms of clean power generation there is. As noted by the author, the most convincing argument for geothermal electricity is the fact that it operates at capacity factors in the upper 90s. This makes it the only renewable technology suitable for baseload power with the exception of dam-based (i.e. large-scale) hydro. However, as...
Alt Energy Investment Opportunities In The Ag Sector: Intro
I just got back from Growing the Margins, a conference and trade show focused on the bio-mass/gas/energy/products sectors with a focus on the farm and food industries. These are not sectors I have traditionally paid a great deal of attention to, despite the fact that there are very interesting things happening in both. The most notable contribution to alt energy from farm industry over the past five years has been corn ethanol, an enterprise I have long believed to be economically and environmentally unsustainable. To be sure, ethanol, but especially second-generation ethanol, got a fair...
