“Until recently there were not many opportunities for socially conscious investors — either institutional or individual — to pursue financial returns and the greater good with the same investment. But that’s all changing, thanks to the emerging field of impact investing, and the impact investors who are building a new kind of marketplace in which financial and social returns are closely linked.” -Judith Rodin, President, Rockefeller Foundation

Thursday, October 11, 2012

An Impact Investment in the Carbon Trading Market

In our first post, we provided an overview of what are impact investment, and in our second post we looked at the critical difference between impact investing and socially responsible investing.  We would now like to start to provide our readers an overview of some specific examples of impact investments GreenWorld offers.

To begin with, let's look at the carbon market.  In the carbon trading market, individuals and/or corporations purchase carbon credits so they can lower their "carbon footprint", or the total amount of CO2 emissions that result from their activities. Carbon offsets mitigate the environmental damage caused by carbon emissions-producing activities like using electricity, driving a car or traveling by air. From the perspective of a retail investor, he or she can actually invest into projects such as rain forest preservation or the planting and development of new trees or bamboo plants that absorb CO2 and produce certified carbon credits. Then, with the assistance of the project manager, these carbon credits are sold into the market, generally to corporations and frequently at a substantial uplift in price.  


Overview of the carbon trading market produces carbon credit investments

The investor benefits from the profit of the sale of the carbon credits, and of course the planet benefits because a new project has been developed which absorbs CO2 from the atmosphere.  In this regard, carbon credit investments actually are a proactive investment made to limit greenhouse gas emissions.  A number of banks and financial institutions, including Barclay's Bank, believe the carbon market could be the largest trading market in the world over the next 10 - 15 years.  Below is an excellent overview of how the carbon trading market works.  If you are interested in learning more about how to invest in the carbon market, please contact us at info@greenworldbvi.com.


1 comment:

  1. Thank you for sharing that infograph! Truly, there are a lot of benefits and advantages in investing on carbon trading. One main advantage is carbon credits create a market for greenhouse gas reduction by turning emissions to internal cost. Also, it allows centralized handling of acquired gains for the company and investors. It is one way of gaining returns while helping the environment.[Sabrina Garza]

    ReplyDelete