Monday 21 August 2017

Renewable profits up 16.9% as fossil fuels drop 1.2%

The 200 largest sustainable public companies generated returns of 16.9% in the last year, compared to a 1.2% decline in fossil fuel stocks.

That's according to As You Sow and Corporate Knights, which have released the latest Carbon Clean 200TM list of billion dollar businesses making significant revenues from clean energy - these companies are contrasted with those on the S&P 1200 Global Energy Index, which dropped 1.2%.

Representing more then $5.2 trillion (£4tn) in total assets, the biggest clean firms include Siemens, Toyota, SSE and Panasonic.

The report suggests their strong performance comes as investors are increasingly concerned about avoiding the risk of having stranded fossil fuel assets and instead ploughing this money into new opportunities within clean energy.

The report says the coal industry is declining particularly quickly in value as not only does it create 40% of global emissions but is now also being consistently out-priced by renewables.

It also suggests the cost of owning an electric car will fall to the same level as petrol-powered vehicles next year, which could mean the oil industry will shortly follow in coal's footsteps.

Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights, said: "While some feared that the climate change in Washington DC would put a damper on clean energy stocks to the benefit of fossil fuel stocks, the opposite has happened.

"Almost poetically, the Clean200 surged past the fossil fuel benchmark on inauguration day and has not looked back since."