Seeds of Change
Net Impact's goal is to inspire, educate, and equip individuals to use the power of business to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world. Interviews with members of our local community who are planting "Seeds of Change" and making our world a better place is what this area of the site is all about. If you would like to be featured in or know of someone who should be, let us know.
Interview with Mark Henshaw of "The Eco Investor Guide"
Q: How did you first get involved with Net Impact?
A: I joined Net Impact in early 2008, after having been away from the environmental scene for a few years. I was excited to discover a group that was focused on using business as a means to create a more socially and environmentally sustainable world.
Traditional environmental groups seem to focus on limits. Net Impact is about possibilities, which I think is the strongest case for making positive change. We’ve talked for many years about what we can’t and shouldn’t be doing, and I think we should be talking about how we can leverage business, technology and invention to work on our issues in climate change and energy. I want to co-opt business to work for us, rather than the traditional case of it being the enemy. After all, when we talk about the problems of big companies – who are the people behind it? People just like us.
For that reason, Net Impact earned my membership. Also the Net Impact website is also great resource and the events I’ve been to are a great way to network with like-minded people in a variety of industries.
Q: What do you do for your day job?
A: Right now my day job is mostly Eco Investor Guide (www.ecoinvestorguide.com), pushing the site to become the one-stop portal for news and information on investing in the green economy. The idea for the website came out of my job with the Global Energy Network Institute (GENI), a non-profit based in San Diego that focuses on the interconnection of electric power networks between nations and continents, with an emphasis on tapping abundant renewable energy resources. I designed Eco Investor Guide as a for-profit separate company, with GENI is a partner on the website. We are committing a share of our profits to support GENI’s proactive efforts toward renewable energy research and education.
I originally came on board at GENI to help market a financial index that they had created in collaboration with KLD Analytics called the Global Climate 100 Index. It is a financial product similar to a mutual fund, and is a list of 100 of the leading public companies that are working to mitigate climate change.
Also at GENI we are working on a project to create a place called the World Resources Simulation Center (www.wrsc.org) that will use state of the art visual technology to literally help people “see” the interconnected nature of our environmental issues. It will be a center to help leaders make better decisions for our world, and faster. This is a large scale project, and we’re working on raising funds and interest in the facility.
Q: Why did you decide to start the "Eco Investor Guide"?
A: On the macro level, when I looked around and thought to myself, “What is the next megatrend in the economy?” - sustainability and energy issues were at the forefront. Megatrends often seem to be very obvious. For example, most people chose not to listen to the many warnings that real estate was in a bubble. They were right about the internet revolution as well in the late 90’s, they were just off by a few years. Amazon sunk to under $6 after the tech bust, and now trades near $140.
As an investor, I have no doubt that climate change and peak oil are out there looming on the horizon, promising major changes in the way we live and in our economy – and these will have profound impacts on our investments. Those investors educating themselves and preparing now for these megatrends are the ones who aren’t going to miss out on the revolution.
On a more activist level, I believe that we need to massively increase the speed and level of investment in the green sector to reach the scale we need to avoid catastrophic climate change. While we are investing more than ever into cleantech and renewable energy, it isn’t enough, and policy changes seem too slow. If I can encourage and educate investors on the possibilities – the investment money needed will follow.
Another aspect of the website’s philosophy is that I want to see ordinary investors who may not be environmentalists at heart, personally own a share of this green revolution. With even a small portion of their portfolio in a cleantech fund, they have a stake in seeing these companies succeed. When a Proposition or legislation comes up like the one trying to defeat AB-32, when it comes time to vote they will be more likely to act and vote in favor of things like renewable energy, rather than against them.
On a practical level, with these ideas in mind, I realized that there was no good place where investors could find, research and compare the many public companies in the green sector as well as the mutual funds and other financial products that have come out in the past several years. This gave rise to the idea of Eco Investor Guide – a place where we could advance public awareness and provide the information, tools and resources for making informed investment decisions in the Eco sector.
Specifically, we define Eco investing as making investments in public companies that stand to profit in the near future from our transition to a carbon neutral and sustainable world.
There are some websites covering Socially Responsible Investing (SRI), but we consider Eco Investing to be a sub-category of this sector. While SRI focuses on Environmental, Social and Governance issues, we focus just on the Environment. We think that this area has the excitement and level of interest that will bring people into the fold. We’ve all been hearing about cleantech, biofuels, the green economy, a new breed of electric cars, solar and wind technologies and more - so investors are taking notice of the sector. Eco Investing can then be a great introduction to the broader field of SRI.
Q: What has been the most rewarding part of starting up the site?
A: Without a doubt the people that I have met in the course of starting up the website. When I first become interested in the financial services industry in college, I was dismayed by the attitudes I saw in some of the people in the business. At the time I couldn’t find a way to combine my interest in finance and investing with my strong environmental beliefs, which ultimately led my career path in a different direction.
Now, of course, I wish I had met some of the people I’m meeting now, who are proving that we can connect our investments with our ethical beliefs and still make money – perhaps even more money. The website is a great tool to promote and bring business to these financial advisors and writers working on all these same issues, as well other people working in the green sector.
Q: Who is your target audience for the "Eco Investor Guide"?
A: Net Impact members are a prime example of one of our target audiences. We are a great source for professionals who are just beginning to have money to invest, or have been investing for a while, who have a strong belief in green principles.
They may come to the site to discover the options available, or are seeking help from a financial professional who can direct them in building their portfolio. Or they may just want to keep up on the developments of the companies in the sector from an investing viewpoint.
We are also a great source for financial advisors, money managers and other investment professionals for research, news and information on the green sector.
Q: Why should someone visit the "Eco Investor Guide"?
A: For Net Impact members, the site is a great way to start their education on Eco investing, first by reading our introductory download to understand a bit more about how to be an Eco investor.
Investors looking to do the research and build their portfolio on their own will find a list of public companies and profiles on them that you can sort out by areas of interest – renewable energies like solar, wind, biofuels and geothermal as well as green building, and the water sector.
For many smaller investors, and by that I mean someone who doesn’t play the stock market but still wants to be a part of the Eco sector, there are a variety of funds that they can invest in that choose the individual companies for them. This is a volatile sector and for many people it is wiser to spread their risk amongst a basket of companies so that if one goes bad, they won’t lose all their investment. These funds choose and invest in anywhere from 30 to 100 companies. Some of them invest in the whole sector. But if you believe strongly in one area, there are funds that invest just in solar companies or wind companies - and you can sort those out on the website. On our site you can compare the returns for these funds, and you’ll see some pretty amazing returns this year, some up over 70%. Of course, these are coming off equally bad returns from last year, so most of these are basically even with where they were a couple years ago. And like the companies, you can click through to a profile which covers more about the funds and where to buy them.
Finally, for someone who has taken a look at all these options and still is unsure about how or where to invest, we’ve included a list of investment advisors who specialize in green and socially responsible investing who can guide them further.