THIS is What "Serious About Sustainability" Looks Like

If you are a company who wants to do business with the big guys, you often to have do it their way. Today, that can mean doing business sustainably.  Large companies are held accountable for the impact of their suppliers.  So, those suppliers must play by the new rules of the game. 

In other words, it just got serious.

As a sustainable investor, you may feel good knowing that your portfolio companies are moving the needle on environmental issues.  But have you considered the risk that your small cap investments may become increasingly uncompetitive if they can't meet these increasingly higher standards? 

There is a real risk that the measurement and documentation of these issues may render some firms "out of the loop" when it comes to earning the business of a Procter and Gamble or a Microsoft.

My Sustainability Talk with Corporate America

Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of addressing the Atlanta chapter of the National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) on the subject of sustainability. Investor relations reps are a company's connection to its shareholders -- answering investor questions, providing information, etc. It is hardly glamorous work, but requires a great deal of effort, and knowledge, to do it well.

Increasingly, questions come to them from investors like Boardwalk, asking about emissions, water usage, diversity, etc.  And many IR representatives are doing a yeoman's job of trying to meet the disparate needs of the investor community. At the end of the day, however, if your company is doing little to address the core issues that bother your shareholders, there ain't much that a pretty face or articulate voice are going to do to fix that.

The good news is that many companies are doing much more, and are using "sustainability" to improve nearly every aspect of their business.

US Buildings need $280bn investment in energy efficiency -- for a $1 trillion return

Buildings account for nearly half of US energy consumption, consume 3/4 of the electricity and, excluding residential, are responsible for more than 45 percent of carbon emissions. The EPA suggests that some 30% of this energy is wasted. 

New research from the Rockefeller Foundation and Deutsche Bank reveals that such inefficiency creates a mammoth investment opportunity --  $279bn investment is needed, and the payback in energy efficiency could yield more than $1 trillion in cost savings over the next decade.  Such a surge of activity stands to employ millions of workers, substantially reduce carbon emissions and provide investors with a handsome return on investment.

Lighting Retrofits: Low Hanging Fruit

For some time now, we have been hearing a politically-charged and nonsensical debate in Washington over new standards for light bulb efficiency.  These standards while new, completely follow past precident to advance the industry and improve efficiency while giving manufacturers clarity from which to make investment decisions.

Less interesting to many, but more impactful to companies and to society, are the efficiency gains that are being realized every day through lighting retrofits.  The cost savings are often staggering.