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Detailed Research Shows Over $3 Trillion Invested in Green Transition

Detailed Research Shows Over $3 Trillion Invested in Green Transition

Published 02-29-12

Submitted by Ethical Markets Media

Ethical Markets Media, LLC (USA and Brazil), released their 2012 GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD® tracking private sector investments since 2007 in green companies and technologies globally, now totaling more than $3.3 trillion.

The 2012 Green Transition Scoreboard® (GTS) report finds Asia, Europe and Latin America catching up with the USA in total non-government investments and commitments for all facets of green markets.  2011 ended with a GTS total of $3,306,051,439,680, starting from 2007.  Given the many studies indicating that investing $1 trillion annually until 2020 will accelerate the Green Transition worldwide and the over 100 research reports and articles referenced in this years' update, the "Green Transition Scoreboard® 2012: From Expanding Cleantech Sectors to Emerging Trends in Biomimicry" definitively shows green investments are becoming the norm.

As Ethical Markets recommends, institutional investors are shifting away from more speculative sectors such as hedge funds, private equity, oil and commodity ETFs.  Ethical Markets hopes global investors are redeploying at least 10% of their portfolios directly in companies driving the Green Transition, putting green markets on track to reach the $10 trillion goal by 2020.  The GTS data provides investment advisors the foundation to update their asset allocations to include green sectors, which Mercer, LLC, advises should represent 40% of portfolios – half to offset climate risk and half to capitalize on these opportunities.

Hazel Henderson, D.Sc.Hon., FRSA, global futurist, former science and technology advisor to the US National Science Foundation, National Academy of Engineering and Office of Technology Assessment, president of Ethical Markets Media, LLC, said, "this current transition from fossil fuels to greater efficiency and renewable energy and resources is simply the next stage in human knowledge and scientific progress."  Dr. Henderson is not alone, as she observes, "institutional investors have focused on climate risk and now have made the leap to opportunities in the global retooling for the inevitable green transition, estimated to be a $45 trillion new global market."

About the Green Transition Scoreboard®, physicist Fritjof Capra, author of The Hidden Connections, finds that, "this important initiative tracks a quiet revolution: the Green transition to technologies that tend to be small-scale, community-oriented, non-polluting, energy-efficient, and labor-intensive, creating plenty of jobs. What more could we want?"

To highlight the shifting paradigm, Timothy Nash, M.Sc., Senior Advisor to Ethical Markets Media, LLC, explains, "One example is the recent burst of activity in the M&A space, largely due to companies spending cash they've hoarded since the 2009 credit crunch.  They are finally ready to deploy capital and are expanding into the green space.  In addition to developing R&D in-house, firms like Google, DuPont, and Toshiba are acquiring small and medium-sized cleantech companies."

Rosalinda Sanquiche, Ethical Markets Media's Executive Director and editor of the Green Transition Scoreboard® report, points out, "As impressive as $3.3 trillion is, there are many green market investments omitted from the GTS – smaller ventures blossoming around the world. Thousands of investments ranging from $100,000 to several million offer significant opportunities to move the green economy forward at the local and regional levels, transforming Main Street beyond Wall Street's attention."  She encourages smaller, decentralized, local enterprises, many inherently more sustainable than large companies, and often generating more jobs, to contact the Ethical Markets research team.

The GTS and Ethical Markets Media, LLC, have earned praise from Joel Makower, chairman and executive editor of fellow media company the GreenBiz Group: "humans, like all nature, survive on feedback loops that help us assess our world and, if we're to survive and thrive, make adjustments along the way.  The Green Transition Scoreboard is a critical contribution to that feedback, tracking the size and scope of our transition to a greener economy.  It provides a hopeful measure of the unlimited potential to restore our world – profitably."

The full report is available at www.greentransitionscoreboard.com.

Ethical Markets Media, LLC, is an independent, multi-media company, its mission to reform markets and metrics while growing the green economy worldwide with daily analysis and reporting on the global green transition and responsible, ethical investments and companies globally (www.ethicalmarkets.com and www.mercadoetico.com.br). 

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Ethical Markets Media

* Reforming finance and growing the green economy worldwide* Ethical Markets provides news and perspective on Climate Prosperity, Reforming Global Finance, SRI and more by gathering information from around the world with analysis by our editor-in-chief, Hazel Henderson.

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