Tag: Sustainable

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Business

The enterprise case for sustainable investing is rising

The business case for sustainable investing is emerging

Nestle continues to grow despite billions of dollars spent improving the company’s environmental footprint, CEO Mark Schneider told CNBC on Thursday.

“Today’s consumer demands sustainability even more than before. They want to know that we treat the planet well, they want to know that we take care of the next generation,” he said in an interview with Jim Cramer about “Mad Money” . “

“I think there is a good business case emerging, and that is exactly what we are pursuing,” said Schneider, whose interview landed on Earth Day.

As stated in its sustainability strategy, Nestle plans to reduce emissions in its business and supply chains and reduce its carbon footprint by 2050.

In the short term, the Switzerland-based food and beverage manufacturer, whose portfolio includes Gerber, KitKat and Nespresso, announced that it would end its dependency on deforestation by next year and switch operations entirely to renewable electricity by 2025 in 187 countries.

Meanwhile, according to its website, Nestle is committed to regenerative agriculture and is committed to planting 20 million trees each year for this decade. KitKat also promised on Thursday that the chocolate brand will achieve carbon neutrality by 2025: a balance between the emission and absorption of carbon in the atmosphere.

“The younger, better educated and the richer the consumers are, the more interested they are in environmentally friendly products and practices,” said Schneider. “Digital these days means your supply chain is completely transparent so that people understand what you are doing for the planet and reward the companies that are leading this trend.”

The comments come after the consumer goods company reported first quarter results that far exceeded Wall Street expectations. Switzerland-based Nestle posted organic growth of 7.7% year-on-year, more than double the expected growth rate of 3.3%.

Compared to pre-pandemic sales, Nestle’s total sales for the first three months were nearly $ 23 billion in the first three months, up 5% on 2019.

Nestle’s shares rose 2.38% on Thursday to end the session at $ 119.71.

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Business

For Journey, a Sustainable Comeback?

For Travel, a Sustainable Comeback?

Tomorrow’s Air, a new climate protection group founded by the Adventure Travel Trade Association, is taking a different path, both technologically and socially. It advocates the removal and storage of carbon, as done by the Swiss company Climeworks – an expensive process that involves filtering carbon dioxide from the air and sometimes injecting it underground into basalt rock, where it mineralizes over time.

While the process seems reasonable, the question is whether it is scalable. said Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who has studied carbon capture for more than 30 years and noted the high cost of running the technology relative to the amount of carbon removed. “It’s much cheaper not to emit than to try to capture it later.”

While the emerging technology is indeed costly – a Peruvian tour operator estimated that cutting a flight between London and Lima with carbon capture technology would cost $ 5,040 – Tomorrow’s Air aims to get people excited about the future of carbon removal, in they invest and create a community of travelers and travel companies in the area that will eventually be large enough to attract businesses and governments to engagement.

“We are providing opportunities for travelers and travel companies to help scale up carbon removal technology,” said Christina Beckmann, co-founder of Tomorrow’s Air. “We thought what if we got travel that was 10 percent or some of global GDP make of it and focus on carbon removal with permanent storage? We could really do something. “

Tomorrow’s Air is pursuing this goal by planning online Airbnb Experiences tours of a carbon capture facility. And it has teamed up with artists who are focused on the climate and showcase their work on its website. It also sells subscriptions starting at $ 30, 80 percent of which is invested in a carbon removal company. 20 percent fund further educational efforts.

The group is holding their first meeting today (virtual, of course) bringing together what they call “climate friendly travelers and brands” to not only talk about carbon capture but also where to go and how to be a more sustainable traveler – a step in harnessing consumer demand for climate change action.

“It’s convenient, affordable, and a way to become part of what will hopefully be a growing travel collective where, as we get bigger, we may be able to scale some things,” said Ann Becker, 68, a Chicago business and travel consultant and member of the US-based Tomorrow’s Air.

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Business

How Sustainable Is the Rally in Renewable Vitality Shares?

How Sustainable Is the Rally in Renewable Energy Stocks?

“Battery prices have fallen 90 percent in the past five to eight years,” said Ms. Bowman. “Solar power coupled with battery storage is the cost-effective solution for California in moving to a cleaner grid,” she added.

Hydrogen fuel cells, which generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, have emerged as a possible short-term solution for use in trucks and shipping, says Bloom. However, such applications require costly expansion of the hydrogen gas station network, said Steve Capanna, director of US climate policy and analysis at the Environmental Defense Fund. Right now, he said, there aren’t many such stations besides “a handful in California”.

Buying stocks from renewable energy stocks now requires a certain level of confidence because they are so expensive, in part because of the low interest rates developed by the Federal Reserve that have helped propel the entire stock market higher. Fed support could be the main reason the market weathered all of the dire coronavirus economic news to continue its seemingly endless rise in valuations.

Paul Coster, a JPMorgan analyst, said the high prices in the renewable energy space are based on solid performance. “It’s not like the dot-com era,” he said. “They are real actors with real technology.” He added, “We live in this wonderful moment when virtue and selfishness coincide.”

Perhaps, thought Mr. Coster, there are still good reasons to own some of these stocks. He cited FuelCell Energy, which has negative cash flow and regularly reports quarterly profit losses. Mr Coster said investors might want to project for several years.

By 2025, it is “feasible” that FuelCell Energy would achieve earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization of $ 60 million, which warrants a rich, high-growth stock valuation. Even so, the company’s shares more than doubled in the last month, and on Jan. 14, Mr. Coster warned that the stock was already “richly valued” at current prices.