EDF+Business - Environmental Defense Fund

Summary: Julius Baer, the leading Swiss private banking group, launches an innovative new service which enables investors to reduce or fully neutralize CO2 emissions of their equity investments. The new offering, called Green Portfolio Services, has been developed in cooperation with South Pole Carbon, a leading emission reduction company and is the first of this nature to be offered by a financial institution. For the first time, investors can reduce or neutralize the climate impact of the equity positions in their portfolios.

Summary: Private equity firms may not be the most obvious eco-trailblazers, but nearly three-quarters of senior buyout executives polled by PricewaterhouseCoopers believe that environmental sustainability is one of their top objectives. The poll found that 88% of senior executives believe sustainability will become a more important factor in business decisions and investments in the next two years. The reason? It can boost the bottom line.

Summary: DealBook recently published a column by the Deal Professor saying that venture capital and private equity are two very different and clashing worlds and citing venture capital’s better public image. But the same praise is deserved for successfully executed private equity investments that benefit society just as much and generally apply in even larger dollar amounts across a broader range of industries.

Summary: According to a Financial Times article, Guy Hands -- chairman of the private equity firm Terra Firma -- aims to double the size of its renewable energy business within the next five years. His confidence is based on the judgment that renewable energy technology is advancing faster than had been supposed. According to Hands, “Eventually, we’ll get to the point where green energy will be generated as cheaply as carbon energy.”