{"id":1346,"date":"2008-09-02T12:33:58","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T11:33:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/?p=1346"},"modified":"2020-07-29T12:21:20","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T11:21:20","slug":"one-view-of-the-best-green-investments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/one-view-of-the-best-green-investments\/","title":{"rendered":"One View of the Best Green Investments"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the last weekend of the school holidays.  After eight weeks, the circling sharks of my children close in for the kill.  I give in to their pleading cherubic faces beaming up at me and say yes.  Yes, we can go to a Theme Park.<\/p>\n<p>Normally I hate the things:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>lots of other people screaming for no reason \u2013 go mountain climbing if you want scarey exercise;<\/li>\n<li>long queues waiting for something disappointing to happen \u2013 much like seeing the latest pulp Hollywood movie;<\/li>\n<li>drinks sold at vastly inflated prices \u2013 you can get that at a shopping mall without having to pay the whopping entrance fee.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(I wonder, is my natural grumpiness showing yet?)<\/p>\n<p>However this time I was pleasantly surprised.  Yes, there were queues, screaming and overpriced drinks.  But some of the rides were actually worth it, and I almost enjoyed the day out!<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Surprising Sustainable Business<\/strong><br \/>\nI was similarly surprised when I came across <a title=\"Sustainable Business -- SB20\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainablebusiness.com\/index.cfm\/go\/news.feature\/id\/1579\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the SB20<\/a>, compiled by <a title=\"Sustainable Business Website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainablebusiness.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Sustainable Business.com<\/a>.  This claims to be a definitive list of the <a title=\"Global Top Twenty Sustainable Businesses Announced\" href=\"http:\/\/inspiredeconomist.com\/2008\/08\/26\/global-top-twenty-sustainable-businesses-announced\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Global Top Twenty Sustainable Businesses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Usually these things are based upon some kind of tangible measure, such as market capitalisation, funds committed towards sustainability programmes, membership of schemes or targets achieved.<\/p>\n<p>This is all very well for providing figures for comparison and analysis.  However it also leads to greenwashing as companies concentrate on ticking the right boxes rather than attempting to change their culture.<\/p>\n<p>In comparison, the SB20 is based solely upon the professional opinion of the judges concerned.  In addition it is based upon progress made rather than targets achieved, meaning small and large companies can compete on a relatively level playing field.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Basic Criteria<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The SB20 is published as part of Sustainable Business\u2019 <a title=\"Progressive Investor Website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sustainablebusiness.com\/index.cfm\/go\/progressiveinvestor.main\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Progressive Investor<\/a> ezine, which discusses publicly listed companies across the world.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, although the SB20 is explicitly not a buy list of companies, companies have to be in a position where they would enhance a portfolio.<\/p>\n<p>Companies also have to meet basic sustainability and financial criteria as follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>the company has to have made significant progress in the previous year in implementing sustainable management processes or growing a business based upon green technology<\/li>\n<li>the company must be profitable or have a strong revenue stream<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The judges themselves come from a typical range of investment professionals: two research companies, two wealth management companies and a bank.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Companies<\/strong><br \/>\nAs mentioned above, businesses which are listed in the SB20 fall into one of two broad camps: either their business in built upon the use of sustainable technology, or they are a conventional business which has made significant progress improving the sustainability of its processes and suppliers.<\/p>\n<p>Just under half of the companies fall into the latter group, known as corporate pioneers.  This includes giants such as <a title=\"IBM Website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ibm.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IBM<\/a>, Google and <a title=\"Hewlett Packard Website\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hp.com\">Hewlett Packard<\/a>, as well as the not-so-well known such as the Brazilian cosmetics firm, <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.natura.net\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Natura Cosmeticos<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Other companies are listed according to the sector they belong to.  Typically, these are energy production, water and building.  However it\u2019s worth noting that the Climate Exchange, one of the first emissions trading brokers, is also part of the list.<\/p>\n<p>In addition to these, a \u201ccore\u201d list of companies has also been published.  These are businesses which Sustainable Business considers to be examples of excellence in their field.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Good Professional Tool<\/strong><br \/>\nSB20 is a good little tool to help investors identify public companies who are growing through their sustainability endeavours.  It is, however, also a promotional product.<\/p>\n<p>Often with these lists there is some kind of commentary to help explain the judges\u2019 decision making rationale.  This is no exception, but sadly you have to subscribe to Progressive Investor to get the full disclosure.  This is a little bit of a shame but isn\u2019t out of line with common practice.<\/p>\n<p>What remains to be seen however is whether the SB20, now in its seventh year, will gain widespread notoriety.  If it does I wonder whether the judges be able to rely solely upon their own professional judgement, or will pressure come to bear for them to justify their conclusions with harder facts and figures?<\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to find out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s the last weekend of the school holidays. After eight weeks, the circling sharks of my children close in for the kill. I give in to their pleading cherubic faces beaming up at me and say yes. Yes, we can go to a Theme Park. Normally I hate the things: lots of other people screaming [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,3],"tags":[574,572,573,571,575],"class_list":{"0":"post-1346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-csr","7":"category-investor","8":"tag-corporate-pioneers","9":"tag-hewlett-packard","10":"tag-natura-cosmeticos","11":"tag-sustainable-business-sb20-ibm-google","12":"tag-top-twenty-sustainable-businesses","13":"entry"},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>One View of the Best Green Investments - Corporate Eye<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.corporate-eye.com\/main\/one-view-of-the-best-green-investments\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One View of the Best Green Investments - Corporate Eye\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s the last weekend of the school holidays. After eight weeks, the circling sharks of my children close in for the kill. I give in to their pleading cherubic faces beaming up at me and say yes. Yes, we can go to a Theme Park. 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