Investing In Sustainability: An Interview With Al Gore And David Blood

[RestoreGore]

Great interview with Al Gore and David Blood about sustainable investing.

http://www.petroleumworld.com/sati07051201.htm

Excerpt:

The Quarterly: What principles drive your approach?

David Blood: The first principle, categorically, is that it is best practice to take a long-term approach to investing. We think that the focus on “short termism” in the marketplace is detrimental to economies, detrimental to value creation, detrimental to capital markets, and a bad investment strategy. It’s common corporate-finance knowledge that something on the order of 60 to 80 percent of the value of a business lies in its long-term cash flows. And if you’re investing with a short-term horizon you’re giving up the value creation of a business.

The second principle is that the context of business is clearly changing. We are now confronting the limits of our ecological system, and at the same time societal expectations of business are widening. On top of that, multinational businesses are oftentimes better positioned than governments to deal with some of the most complicated global challenges, such as climate change, HIV/AIDS, water scarcity, and poverty. Technology and communications have changed, and we’ve reached a point where civil society is now demanding a response from business.

snip

The Quarterly: Any final thoughts for executives trying to understand this trend toward sustainability investing?

Al Gore: Be part of the solution and not part of the problem. Your employees, your colleagues, your board, your investors, your customers are all soon going to place a much higher value—and the markets will soon place a much higher value—on an assessment of how much you are a part of the solution to these issues.

end of excerpt
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My comments

There was a time when long term investing and planning was considered the prudent thing in the business world. Then along came the dotcom boom and like the fast food industry and other products designed to get it to us yesterday the long term steady market investment strategies gave way to the short term fix me up now and don't worry about the future type of investing.

This type of investing however, has left many companies on the short end of the stick literally and their business practices put into question. I fervently then believe that with the advent of sustainable investing that seeks steady long term gains based on principled investing that we will begin to see a market surge with businesses also making stronger alliances, broad based sustained profits, and relationships with investors and customers that are sustained and growing over generations rather than just getting in and getting out for the quick fix that many times is unrealized with nothing gained for the customer or the planet.

This is the one time in our history when the investment industry has the chance to finally do something morally right across the board and turn a profit at the same time. Investing in sustainable renewable technologies, innovative ideas that seek to challenge the limits of our imagination to bring us to that cleaner safer world we must have in order to survive, and also taking into account the role developing countries play in all of this can only bring a company closer to bridging the gap between morality and profit.

I am very interested in Mr. Gore's and Mr. Blood's views on the types of companies invested in regarding sustainability, and truly do believe that once more people in this world have seen the kind of world we can have with them making lifestyle changes and demanding more ethical and sustainable decisions regarding investment practices that it will also change the face of doing business in order to meet the challenges we must face today and in years to come.

For example, I am very concerned about the water crisis our world faces and would hope to see technologies come forward that will seek to save water (especially regarding irrigation) and which make it easier for people in developing and poor countries to have the water they need without having to pay a high price to corporations that use them for profit, strip their land, divert their rivers, and pollute their environment. One such investment are solar powered water pumps. It is not only an investment that would be ethical, but it also is an investment that can be longterm while having a sustained positive impact upon our world because the power source is 100% renewable, clean, and now becoming cheaper.

Even in the face of the crisis that now challenges us, we have an opportunity to use the resources we have at our disposal to do what is right and at the same time provide investment vehicles that promise opportunity for growth that will also lift the poor out of poverty rather than strangle them with long term debt they will never be able to repay. We must bring sustainable and renewable technologies to these people and give them the tools to learn how to use them to better their own lives without sacrificing their ecological balance. That is what ethical sustainable investing is all about to me as I look long term, and I am pleased that Mr. Gore and Mr. Blood are looking in that direction as well.

And to those who think that Al Gore is not making an impact upon this world as a private citizen, you are simply wrong. This is how it's done.

[RestoreGore]

1. Generation Investment Management

http://www.generationim.com/philosophy/

[SpiralHawk]

2. Thank you, President Gore

America needed some leadership. The republicons who stole the White House have give us only lies, corruption, profiteering, and sexual deviancy. America has a profound need for people like you who can envision positive ways to go forward to solve problems we all share.

[RestoreGore]

3. Absolutely

He is an American treasure regardless of his address.