Where Financial Sector Goes, So Goes The Economy
I've been privy to a couple dialogs with CxO's in Financial Services on the topic of greening their enterprise. They take the subject very seriously. It is a clear priority for at least one of them, to the point where he is taking direct responsibility for his institution's environmental
(in the Earth Day sense) campaign.
I think we're on the brink of a watershed event for sustainability in our economy that will very soon see the Financial Sector leading the transformation. Financial institutions are giving serious consideration to products such as ‘green’ mortgages for energy efficient homes & small businesses, special loans for financing residential energy improvements like adding solar, credit cards with a percentage of finance charge donated to green charities. Many of these institutions have in-house programs for carbon offsets of employee travel, procurement of renewable energy, LEED certification of new office and retail spaces, and environmentally preferred purchasing.
Why are they serious about this? Financial Services leaders are influenced by facts like these:
* Pension funds are arguing for climate change regulation.
* Nations' finance ministers are proposing policy to promote financial instruments like pollution credits.
* The WorldBank is moving beyond GDP to include natural resources in valuing nations' wealth.
* Morgan Stanley tracks energy consumption and GHG emissions and commits to reducing GHG emissions by 7-10% by 2012, and they committed to $3B in carbon emissions credits over 5 years.
* Reinsurers anticipate increased losses due to climate change, potentially reaching $1 trillion.
* Venture capitalists invested $1.6B in clean tech in 2005, and $2.4B in clean energy in 2006
* Economists project that clean energy market will be $220B by 2016.
Sun is positioned at the front edge of this economic transformation that will some day, one hopes, balance Earth's books. CoolThreads servers, Project Blackbox, SunRay thin clients, and OpenWork practice are unique and broadly applicable innovations available from Sun today that can help financial institutions lead this trend, which increasingly appears to have the potential to be an economic expansion, rather than a contraction which many carbon-economy industrialists are projecting.
I think we're on the brink of a watershed event for sustainability in our economy that will very soon see the Financial Sector leading the transformation. Financial institutions are giving serious consideration to products such as ‘green’ mortgages for energy efficient homes & small businesses, special loans for financing residential energy improvements like adding solar, credit cards with a percentage of finance charge donated to green charities. Many of these institutions have in-house programs for carbon offsets of employee travel, procurement of renewable energy, LEED certification of new office and retail spaces, and environmentally preferred purchasing.
Why are they serious about this? Financial Services leaders are influenced by facts like these:
* Pension funds are arguing for climate change regulation.
* Nations' finance ministers are proposing policy to promote financial instruments like pollution credits.
* The WorldBank is moving beyond GDP to include natural resources in valuing nations' wealth.
* Morgan Stanley tracks energy consumption and GHG emissions and commits to reducing GHG emissions by 7-10% by 2012, and they committed to $3B in carbon emissions credits over 5 years.
* Reinsurers anticipate increased losses due to climate change, potentially reaching $1 trillion.
* Venture capitalists invested $1.6B in clean tech in 2005, and $2.4B in clean energy in 2006
* Economists project that clean energy market will be $220B by 2016.
Sun is positioned at the front edge of this economic transformation that will some day, one hopes, balance Earth's books. CoolThreads servers, Project Blackbox, SunRay thin clients, and OpenWork practice are unique and broadly applicable innovations available from Sun today that can help financial institutions lead this trend, which increasingly appears to have the potential to be an economic expansion, rather than a contraction which many carbon-economy industrialists are projecting.
Posted by Scott on May 21, 2007 at 10:11 AM PDT #