In this article Tomorrow’s Company Founder Director Mark Goyder sets out why we customers can no longer take a passive role in the investment process and why it is essential that we hold to account the actions of those who invest our money.    

People around the world are embracing Green Capitalism because it is now possible to create a higher standard of living for every person and community throughout the world, by shifting from resource-wasting industrial development to resource saving industrialism. In the 21st Century, people, places, and organizations will literally “get richer by becoming greener,” earning more money by using fewer resources and reusing more.

 The 2007-2009 financial crisis was a perfect "black swan" event: unexpected, a rarity, with broad and deep impacts; and, with the benefit of hindsight, it was also retrospectively rationalised by many "experts". We got it all "sensationally" wrong: bankers (like myself), policy-makers, supervisors, auditors, research analysts, economists, civil society itself. And even as the crisis was unfolding, many initially did not consider its seriousness. We saw dangers of shocks, but underestimated the confluence and impact thereof.  

Global climate change has been our greatest market failure. Now it’s our greatest market opportunity.  Market mechanisms are enormously powerful tools to apply to such challenges as climate change. Mitigating greenhouse gas emissions worldwide will require a crash program to use energy more efficiently, and to use renewable energy sources.  Doing this can cut costs and drive competitiveness, spread the use of clean energy technologies that already are cost-competitive and available and develop next-generation technologies in virtually every sector of the economy.

GLOBE-Net (October 16, 2009) What is the role of investors in creating a more sustainable economy? A survey of fund managers just published by the UK’s Fair Pensions campaign provides challenging reading for anyone who believes that a green future will emerge simply through market forces operating in the investment community. The market purist argument is that the system should regulate itself; because if climate change really is a material risk for businesses, it should be built into the way companies are valued. Companies whose factories or plantations could be destroyed by climate change-induced floods or droughts should be less attractive investments than ones making wind turbines or hybrid car engines.