Are you in the Clean 200?

Recently As You Sow and Corporate Knights released the inaugural version of the Carbon Clean 200TM (Clean200TM), a list of 200 clean energy companies.

The shift from fossil fuels to green energy makes environmental sense, but does it make economic sense? They asked the question: which companies currently are profiting from making the decision to participate in the clean transition and what is the best way to spot them?

Who is on the list?

Here is the top 20. You can see the full list here.

Short Name Country HQ Total Rev. (USD) Est. Clean Rev. (USD) Clean Energy product/service examples
TOYOTA MOTOR Japan $236,785,844,094 $40,253,593,496 Hybrid, electric, fuel cell vehicles
SIEMENS AG-REG Germany $86,893,708,535 $14,771,930,451 Renewable energies, transmission, smart grids, energy storage, public transport
JOHNSON CONTROLS US $37,179,000,000 $13,756,230,000 Building energy efficiency systems and batteries
SCHNEIDER ELECTR France $29,570,624,562 $10,941,131,088 Energy management
PANASONIC CORP Japan $62,972,426,333 $10,705,312,477 Renewable energies and batteries
EMERSON ELEC CO US $22,304,000,000 $8,252,480,000 Energy management
VESTAS WIND SYST Denmark $9,349,601,002 $7,012,200,751 Wind power
PHILIPS LIGHTING Netherlands $8,286,212,926 $6,214,659,695 LED lights
ABB LTD-REG Switzerland $35,481,000,000 $6,031,770,000 Renewable energies, transmission, smart grids, energy storage, public transport
KONINKLIJKE PHIL Netherlands $26,911,044,364 $4,574,877,542 Energy efficient lighting
DONG ENERGY A/S Denmark $11,070,372,627 $4,096,037,872 Wind power
UMICORE Belgium $10,764,512,097 $3,982,869,476 Recycling
XINJIANG GOLD-A China $4,750,100,957 $3,562,575,718 Wind plants
EATON CORP PLC Ireland $20,855,000,000 $3,545,350,000 Energy management and superchargers
SHARP CORP Japan $20,521,318,440 $3,488,624,135 Solar cells
BOMBARDIER INC-B Canada $18,172,000,000 $3,089,240,000 Rail transportation
TESLA MOTORS US $4,046,025,000 $3,034,518,750 Electric vehicles
GAMESA Spain $3,889,249,755 $2,916,937,316 Wind turbines
FIRST SOLAR INC US $3,578,995,000 $2,684,246,250 Solar modules
HELLA KGAA HUECK Germany $7,131,215,443 $2,638,549,714 Lighting, electronics for electric cars

How do you get there?

The authors by their own admission think the index has some way to go, but it provides us with a start. To get on the list in the first place you must earn more than 10% of your revenues from New Energy Sources and have a market capitalisation of over $1bn. They relied on the Bloomberg New Energy Finance database, referenced to a company’s revenues to come up with their estimated clean revenue.

They took out a group that included all oil and gas companies and utilities that generate less than 50% of their power from green sources, as well as some socially undesirable companies including weapons producers and child or forced labour and companies who engage in negative climate lobbying.

What did they find?

It is good news for Investors: “The Clean200 nearly tripled the performance of its fossil fuel reserve-heavy counterpart over the past ten years, showing that clean energy companies are providing concrete and measurable rewards to investors,” said Toby Heaps, CEO of Corporate Knights and report co-author. “What’s more, the outstanding performance of this list shows that the notion that investors must sacrifice returns when investing in clean energy is outdated. Many clean energy investments are profitable now, and we anticipate that over the long-term their appeal will only go up as technologies improve and more investors move away from underperforming fossil fuel companies.”

Conclusion

Clearly the shift to green energy, based on this report is driving home the returns to investors in the top companies. Over time as technologies continue to improve in the green energy space and prices drop, making smart decisions about energy consumption and the funding of it will make not only environmental sense but economic sense to organisations of all sizes.