18th February 2025

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Clear energy pays off, in keeping with the brand new Clear200 record compiled by the activist shareholder group As You Sow. The 200 corporations on the record have collectively outperformed fossil power corporations by 39% since 2016, as measured by the main world fairness index administered Morgan Stanley Capital Worldwide. A lot for the argument that divesting from fossil fuels is dangerous for enterprise.

Clear Energy Pays Off

The brand new Clear200 record is the 11th such record compiled by As You Sow, which has been monitoring company clear energy actions since 2016.

To be clear, a thumbs-up from As You Sow doesn’t essentially imply that an organization is internet zero or carbon impartial right here and now, however it does reveal that buyers have loads of alternatives put their cash to work on the power transition, as an alternative of throwing extra {dollars} on the fossil power economic system.

“The Clear200 has persistently demonstrated that what we referred to as the ‘clear power’ future eight years in the past is now the clear power current,” defined As You Sow CEO Andrew Behar in a press assertion.

This yr, the dimensions and world variety of main corporations proceed to broaden and redefine the time period ‘cleantech’ to be any firm with services and products that can cut back demand for fossil fuels and water,” he added.

Clear Energy By The Numbers

The Clear200 record is a undertaking of As You Sow in partnership with the sustainable economic system information and analysis group Company Knights.

The businesses on the record are ranked by Buying Energy Parity (aka the Worldwide Greenback), described as “the speed at which the forex of 1 nation is transformed into that of one other nation to purchase the identical quantity of products and companies in every nation.” The rankings additionally embrace a secondary measure indicating the proportion of an organization’s income categorized as sustainable.

The goal is to point the place a company stands when it comes to affect over the worldwide economic system and its position within the power transition. It’s no shock to see acquainted names on the CleanTechnica radar amongst all the High 10 PPP performers.

Going by PPP, Apple tops the Clear200 record by a large margin, although its sustainable income solely registered 70%.

Others fared higher on sustainable income. Amperex (the previous dad or mum firm of the CATL battery agency) got here in a distant second for PPP however reached the 100% mark for sustainable income. Third-place PPP holder Tesla additionally earned a 100% mark for sustainable income.

The seven different High 10 corporations are additionally acquainted names on the CleanTechnica radar. So as of PPP they’re: the semiconductor agency TSMC, HP, Microsoft, Schneider Electrical, Nucor, Ibderola, and LG Power.

In keeping with the evaluation from As You Sow and Company Knights, the 200 corporations on the Clear200 record have collectively overperformed the Morgan Stanley ACWI (All Nation World Index) for power.

“These corporations generated virtually double the returns of the primary fossil gasoline index from July 1, 2016, to January 15, 2024, regardless of geopolitical tensions which have favored fossil gasoline shares previously two years,” As You Sow notes.

“$10,000 invested within the Clear200 on July 1, 2016, would have grown to $20,346 by Jan. 15, 2024, versus $16,453 for the MSCI ACWI/Power benchmark for fossil gasoline corporations,” As You Sow provides.

The Clear200 record additionally adheres to basic ideas of ESG (atmosphere, social, governance) investing. It excludes corporations which will have a fairly good monitor document on clear energy however are disqualified on account of different elements. Along with excluding the fossil gasoline trade, As You Sow notes that corporations concerned in deforestation, jail labor, weapons, and tobacco are additionally off the record.

As You Sow additionally notes that the Clear200 collectively under-performed the broader MSCI ACWI index, which tracks virtually 3,000 corporations in 23 developed international locations and 24 rising markets. That’s presumably as a result of exclusions. CleanTechnica is reaching out to As You Sow for extra insights on that.

Within the meantime, although, the primary level is that buyers can divest from fossil fuels with out punching themselves within the face, financially talking.

How Inexperienced Is Inexperienced Metal?

For these of you questioning how the US firm Nucor managed to make the Clear200 High 10, that’s a very good query. As a steelmaker and the one consultant of a heavy trade within the High 10, Nucor stands out like a sore thumb. All of the others are within the tech sector or are firmly cemented to the power transition, reminiscent of Tesla, Schneider, and Ibderola.

Steelmaking has been thought-about one of many hardest-to-decarbonize industries, however Nucor can wield appreciable affect over the power transition as a consequence of its standing as the most important steelmaker within the US. On January 30, CNBC profiled the corporate and famous that Nucor makes one in each 4 tons of metal produced within the US, amongst different actions.

“Nucor has made more cash previously three years than it has within the final 20 mixed, owing partially to the corporate’s enterprise in quite a lot of sectors,” noticed CNBC reporter Julie Coleman.

CleanTechnica first took discover of Nucor’s clear energy journey again in 2019, when the corporate tapped Missouri to host a brand new metal recycling plant. The choice was based mostly partly on entry to competitively priced wind energy. A $10 million grant from the US Division of Transportation for a brand new rail connection additionally helped to seal the deal.

Final yr, Nucor surfaced once more when it fired up a brand new plant in Brandenburg, Kentucky. The power combines recycled metal with electric-arc furnaces for a decreased carbon footprint.

“Nucor claims that the greenhouse gasoline depth of its metal is 1/5 the common for standard metal making from uncooked supplies in blast furnaces,” CleanTechnica noticed.

“Moreover, Nucor notes that it’s looking for LEED v4 certification from the US Inexperienced Constructing Council for the Brandenberg facility, an trade first,” we added.

Science-Primarily based Targets For The Inexperienced Steelmaker Of The Future

Although the Brandenburg plant itself doesn’t run on clear energy — but — it does assist push the clear energy envelope. Its signature product is Nucor’s new Elcyon™ metal, tailor-made particularly to be used by the US offshore wind trade.

By way of long run planning, Nucor additionally helps the greenhouse gasoline depth targets outlined within the “Metal Local weather Normal” adopted by the International Metal Local weather Council, in alignment with different objectives together with the 2015 Paris settlement on local weather change.

In 2021 Nucor introduced net-zero objectives overlaying Scope 1 and a pair of, which embrace emissions from its personal amenities in addition to emissions associated to the power it procures. In November 2023 Nucor introduced new objectives, together with Scope 3, which addresses emissions which are associated to, although circuitously attributable to, a enterprise or group.

“Nucor’s net-zero 2050 and interim 2030 targets embrace scopes 1, 2, and three emissions from the manufacturing of sizzling rolled metal as outlined by the GSCC, making Nucor the primary diversified steelmaker within the U.S. to set GHG discount targets encompassing all three scopes,” Nucor defined.

Along with adopting extra clear energy, Nucor’s decarbonization technique contains utilizing much less pure gasoline. That’s an fascinating twist. A lot of the eye round inexperienced metal has centered on pushing coal out of the method, however it seems like pure gasoline is the subsequent domino to fall.

Observe me @tinamcasey on Bluesky, Threads, Submit, and LinkedIn.

Picture: The activist shareholder group As You Sow compares the monetary monitor document of its Clear200 corporations with fossil power efficiency (courtesy of As You Sow).


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