The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ from ETHICAL MARKETS, the independent global multi-media company, tracks total private investment in companies growing the green economy since 2007. The mid-2010 update shows a rise to $1,646,719,228,993 from $1.24 trillion at the end of December 2009. The report was released today by founder-CEO HAZEL HENDERSON, D.Sc.Hon, FRSA, futurist and author of Ethical Markets: Growing The Green Economy (Chelsea Green, 2006). Dr. Henderson has advised the U.S. Congress Office of Technology Assessment, the National Science Foundation and the National Academy of Engineering, tracking these technologies since the 1970s.

Dr. Henderson, creator of the GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ (GTS), stressed its vision and purpose, "Our mission of fostering ethical markets and growing the green economy worldwide is shared by millions of entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers, venture capitalists, investors, pension funds, as well as civic groups, academics, students and employees of incumbent industries in the fossilized sectors in many countries. This requires the revolution in corporate and national accounts we have long advocated - now underway by the new International Integrated Reporting Committee (IIRC) steered by 33 organizations, including the Global Reporting Initiative, the UN Principles of Responsible Investing and many other pension funds and accounting bodies worldwide, with the backing of the International and US Accounting Standards Boards."

As Matthew Kiernan, founder of Innovest and founder-CEO of Inflection Point Capital Management, author of Investing in a Sustainable World, explains, "The GTS makes a uniquely useful contribution to the necessary macro-economic transition in at least two important respects: it adopts a much more comprehensive and therefore effective working definition of a green economy than is usually the case, and it also provides a robust and consistent framework for measuring our progress towards it."

"The GTS is an important milestone in measuring the increasing economic viability of the CleanTech universe," says Stuart Valentine, president of Iowa Progressive Asset Management, a leading US investment firm. "Since 1987, we have guided our investors towards companies leading the growing green economy: the Sustainability Sector."

Henderson adds, "The GREEN TRANSITION SCOREBOARD™ measures concrete progress as we traverse this great global transition from the Industrial Era to the information-rich, cleaner, healthier and greener Solar Age." Reports confirm this, such as the July 2010 study Solar and Nuclear Costs - the Historic Crossover by economist John O. Blackburn, former Duke University Chancellor, which finds that solar energy is now cheaper than nuclear.

Helen Rake, principal for Collins Capital Management, Inc., in Jacksonville agrees: "The Green Transition Scoreboard™ gives our ESG clients a true barometer of significant change going on in corporations around the globe."

Ethical Markets, its partners Mercado Etico and the World Business Academy, and the thousands of groups linking to Ethical Markets see this Green Transition as inevitable, viable and achievable, by scaling up existing technologies and energy efficiency gains. This website links to many studies, computer models and reports which indicate that investing $1 trillion every year until 2020 can ramp up material and energy efficiencies, reduce costs of wind, solar, geothermal, water, sustainable land-use and forestry, which together with smart infrastructure, transport, building and urban re-design, can accelerate the Green Transition worldwide.

Timothy Nash, M.Sc., Ethical Markets' Senior Advisor and Director of Sustainability Research, compiles and analyzes the Green Transition Scoreboard™. "The mid-2010 total of over $1.6 trillion puts G-20 countries on track to reach our 2020 target of $10 trillion. This $10 trillion goal is much less than the $23 trillion U.S. taxpayers are liable, including bailouts since 2008 (www.sigtarp.gov) and only represents 10% of global pension and institutional portfolio assets of some $120 trillion," says Nash. "This figure has outpaced even the most optimistic expectations for investments in the green economy, providing tangible evidence that investors are shifting their assets and that momentum is building for a green economic transition."

Henderson and Nash share the hope that this data and the shift to "triple bottom line," ESG accounting standards will encourage pension funds to follow the lead of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC) to shift more of their portfolios away from risky investments in the fossilized sectors and commodities speculation to more direct investments in growing the green sectors.

Nash adds, "Our new totals are broken down into five categories: Renewable Energy; Efficiency and Green Construction; Cleantech; Smart Grid; and Corporate R&D. (Click here for report.) We welcome all enquiries!"

Ethical Markets Executive Director Rosalinda Sanquiche, M.Sc., says, "Individual investors see the green economy growing on Main Street. We welcome non-profit groups to access the full report by installing our GTS icon with a link to www.greentransitionscoreboard.com on their websites, free of charge for the next 30 days."

Ethical Markets Media

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.

More from Ethical Markets Media