WE CAN DO THIS
Personal Investment
If you invest money, there are growth opportunities in the green energy sector. Consider mutual funds with environmental standards or that focus on clean energy firms.
As an investor and a consumer, you have a powerful say in how companies conduct their business. Where you invest and how you use your power as a shareholder or a mutual fund owner can change policy. By investing in cleaner energy companies or by organizing shareholder resolutions and attending shareholder meetings you can change the decisions made by power companies as they invest in either coal or in clean energy.
As Calvert Funds explains: Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) is an investment strategy that integrates social or environmental criteria into financial analysis. With approximately $2.29 trillion in assets in the US today, SRI is catching on with many individual and institutional investors who seek to: Align their investment portfolio with their personal values by avoiding companies that do not meet certain standards, and encourage improved corporate social and environmental performance through an active investment strategy.
Here are just a few examples investor power and some resources to get you going.
- CERES a coalition of investors and environmental activists for social responsibility has recently reported that in response to shareholder requests, four U.S. electric power companies in Missouri and Wisconsin have joined other utility companies in assessing and disclosing the potential impacts from foreseeable mandates to control carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
- Co-op America members, in partnership with a coalition of environmental action groups, recently demanded that Merrill Lynch and Citigroup stop funding the TXU Corporation's plans for 11 new coal plants in Texas and TXU's new investors agreed to cancel 8 of the 11 plants.
- Investors persuaded Great Plains Energy Inc. in Kansas City, MO, Alliant Energy in Madison, WI, WPS Resources in Green Bay, WI and MGE Energy in Madison, WI to disclose how they are preparing for future GHG-reducing regulatory scenarios. All four companies have proposed to build new pulverized coal-fired power plants that could be especially vulnerable to greenhouse gas emission limits on power plants. This does not sit well with investors.
- Rainforest Action Network (RAN) has a campaign to shift the financial sector’s multi-billion dollar investments away from dirty energy and toward clean energy solutions. It is focused on detailing Citi (NYSE:C) and Bank of America’s (NYSE:BAC) extensive investments in the coal industry.
- Sierra club has announced that it is targeting Dynegy, who is now the largest single builder of coal plants, with a series of shareholder actions designed to get them to abandon their plans to build 8 new coal plants.
- CERES reports that U.S. investors have filed a record 54 global warming shareholder resolutions with U.S. companies that face far-reaching business impacts from climate change. It was this type of effort that provides activists with the information needed to confront TXU management on the risks involved in its plans to build 11 new coal plants. These efforts later helped to make the case to TXU’s new management that the company would be too carbon intensive and led to the cancellation of eight plants.
- A directory of socially responsible funds.