In the News

Microgrids:

Are Microgrids Expensive?
Microgrid Knowledge
A commonly quoted price range for a microgrid is $2 to $4 million/MW. But the figure requires extensive footnoting. Cost depends on where and why ...

Solar Microgrids and Charging Stations to be Placed at Schools
Santa Barbara Edhat
A Community Microgrid is a new approach for designing and operating electric grids. Going beyond traditional microgrids, which serve only a single ...

10 Puerto Rican Schools Receive Resilient Microgrids
CleanTechnica
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), Save the Children, and Kinesis Foundation have completed the installation of 10 renewable microgrids in 10 schools ...

Sector Based Decarbonization:

The biggest challenges to decarbonization are still ahead
S&P Global
This is the second article in a series looking at key energy sector trends, .... logistics sector and industrial supply chain operations in 2019, based on ...

Guest column: With solar ITC extension defeat, it's time to think outside the subsidy box
Solar Power World
The solar ITC has resulted in the industry's failure to plan ahead. ... In principally electrification-based decarbonization models, PV's beneficial ...

I've been polluting the planet for years. I'm not an oil exec—I'm an architect
Fast Company
We have 10 years to radically decarbonize the building industry. .... the structure, or beginning to consider timber and other bio-based materials.

Global Reporting Initiative:

Getting Tough On Corporate Tax Transparency
Global Finance
The Global Reporting Initiative shook up its audience of multinational corporations last month with the release of GRI 207: Tax 2019, a new framework ...

How the GRI's new standard for transparency in reporting tax can help raise money for SDGs
Ethical Corporation Magazine
With the IMF estimating that companies avoid paying $600bn in tax each year, a global standard on tax transparency is long overdue, argues Tim ...

Outotec awarded EcoVadis Gold recognition in supplier CSR assessment for the third consecutive ...
Yahoo Finance
Outotec reports its corporate responsibility using the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) Standards. Outotec is committed to the UN Global Compact ...

Renewable Energy Investments:

After Violent Clashes of 2019, Investors Reassess Chile's Prospects for Renewable Energy
Greentech Media
Investors believe the prospects remain strong for Chile's hot renewables market, despite recent social unrest that caused the nation to relinquish ...

Invest in Renewable Energy
Investment U
Renewable energy from sources like wind, waves and geothermal heat, has been the topic of great discussion over recent years. There has been an ...

2020 Renewable Energy Outlook: Redevelopment Opportunities and State and Local Tax ...
The National Law Review
Other federally-authorized tax incentives may be available for renewable energy investments in low-income areas called Qualified Opportunity Zones ...

CDP Sustainability:

Lanitis Bros renamed Coca-Cola HBC Cyprus
In-Cyprus.com
Coca-Cola HBC is ranked among the top sustainability performers in ESG benchmarks such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, CDP, MSCI ESG ...

California's Leadership in Climate Change:

Bloomberg sees California as model on climate change, guns
Washington Post
“I think that California can serve as a great example for the rest of this country. You have led the way on climate change, on fighting gun violence and ...

Australia's bush fires reveal how Scott Morrison has lost his way
Washington Post
Australians are now wondering whether they have elected a leader who is more ... Amazon fires and the 800,000 hectares that burned in California in 2018. ... that Australia is particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

The Clean Economy Act Will Make VA a Top US Climate Leader
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Clean Economy Act Will Make VA a Top U.S. Climate Leader ... Only a very few other elite states in the nation (like California, Hawaii, New .... The Clean Economy Act Prevents Unnecessary New, Climate-changing Gas Plants.

Impact Investing:

Identifying the opportunity in impact investing
The Banker
Impact investing – which offers social and environmental benefits as well as financial returns – is still developing but the UK's newly created Impact ...

Impact Investing Is Primed To Become a Bigger Force in 2020
Equities.com
Impact investing is a fast-fast-growing trend that will have long-term effects on money management and the financial services industry in general.

The Right Climate for Investments With a Positive Impact
CTech
In other words, these business leaders of established companies believe in impact investment – that is, investments that make a positive difference ...

Energy Storage:

2020: The Decade For Energy Storage
OilPrice.com
The developers of the lithium-ion battery won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019, in recognition of a scientific achievement that has helped power our ...

California has big clean energy ambitions, and is looking for better energy storage to realize them
Utility Dive
The California Energy Commission (CEC) is putting up to $11 million on the table for developers of energy storage technologies other than lithium-ion ...

Energy-Storage.news' Top 10 blogs of 2019
Energy Storage News (blog)
The 10 most popular blogs on Energy-Storage.news during 2019 offer a fairly strong indication of the overall topics leading industry thinking during the ...

Science Based Carbon Performance Targets:

N/A    

Climate Change Winners and Losers:

9 winners and one really big loser from the 2020 Golden Globes
Vox
Political statements were made about climate change, for instance, but usually via the lens of support for those suffering from the bushfires in Australia.

House Republican proposes using tax code to combat climate change
Washington Examiner
“What I have seen through tax credits is, when you pick winners and losers, it can become heavily distortive,” Reed said. “This is about leveling the ...

The Brief: EU's green transition 'will have slightly positive economic effect'
Euronews
The EU's move towards a carbon-neutral economy to tackle climate change will have a "slightly positive" economic effect, it's been claimed. ... would have winners and losers but that it ...

Socially Responsible Investing:

What Is Socially Responsible Investing?
U.S. News & World Report (blog)
If you're trying to decide where to invest your money, there's a chance that you might have run across the term socially responsible investing, or SRI.

Millennials' ESG Investing Will Transform Markets, DeVere Group Says
Financial Advisor Magazine
More than three-quarters of millennials (77%) are placing a priority on socially responsible and impact investing, according to a global deVere Group ...

Build wealth and build a better world
Santa Fe New Mexican
In the past, environmentally and socially responsible investing often required accepting lower returns in exchange for avoiding the bad apples that ...    

Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage:

How to build a circular economy that recycles carbon
Vox
This is part four of a four-part series on carbon capture and utilization (CCU), the growing ... More specifically, we dig up hydrocarbons, break their bonds to release the stored energy, and then dump the carbon into the air in the form ...

Colorado Carbon Capture Project on Drawing Board
Natural Gas Intelligence
Total has assigned 10% of the annual research and development budget to making “significant advances” in carbon capture, utilization and storage ...

Svante, LafargeHolcim, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures and Total Launch Study for Commercial-Scale ...
Yahoo Finance
"Total has slated 10% of its annual R&D budget to make significant advances in Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage (CCUS) technology, a key ...

Sustainability Investing:

Stewardship and engagement, keys to sustainability investing
The Asset ESG
STEWARDSHIP and engagement are the key elements to integrating environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors into the investment ...

Sustainability and profitability can co-exist. Here's how
World Economic Forum (blog)
Why are we still debating the merits of marrying sustainability with business ... This underscores a new trend in sustainable investing that focuses on ...

Norway tops RobecoSAM's global sustainability ranking
Funds Europe Magazine
Norway is the world's most sustainable country in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing, according to a report by ...

Geoengineering:

Geoengineering Wouldn't Be Enough to Stop Greenland From Melting
Gizmodo
When the Greenland ice sheet went into a record meltdown in the summer of 2019, it raised a very terrifying specter of the future. Here was a ...

Science Friday
WNYC Studios
In the context of climate change, geoengineering refers to deliberate, large-scale manipulations of the planet to slow the effects of human-induced ...

The climate policy milestone that was buried in the 2020 budget
Grist
For geoengineering critics, the earmark and McNerney's bill might sound like cause for alarm. But experts and policymakers say that these twin ... 

Green Bond Funds:

What Are Green Bonds?
Wall Street Journal
While similar to traditional bonds, these fixed-income securities are different in at least one important way: Funds raised via green bonds must get ...

Green bonds set to keep flying off shelves in 2020
Financial Times
Through the end of September, more than $189bn in green bonds — whose proceeds are used to fund environmentally-friendly projects — had come ...

SEK 1 billion green bond issued by Swedavia
Industry Global News 24
The airport operator has become a pioneer by issuing green bond loans for funding projects. The operator's bond will fund clean energy projects and ...

Low Carbon Funds:

Is iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF (CRBN) a Strong ETF Right Now?
Yahoo Finance
The iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF (CRBN) was launched on 12/08/2014, and is a smart beta exchange traded fund designed to offer ...

Unlocking capital for low-carbon infrastructure
Eco-Business
To help scale up the development and financing of sustainable infrastructure in low- and middle-income economies, we propose a new holistic ...

More Banks Are Screening for ESG Risk in Underwriting, Survey Shows
Barron's
... the transition to a low-carbon more sustainable economy, 'transition financing' is likely to become a vital route to obtain bank financing,” Fitch said in ...