Cleaning Up the Environment Is Good Business

From today's EEI newsletter:

"Major Insurers Creating Business Opportunities From Climate Change
Climate change is becoming big business, with major insurers creating opportunities from many different aspects of environmental change, U.S. News & World Report reported. Wrote the news magazine: "The climate strategies the insurers have spelled out aren't about avoiding losses; they're about generating revenue."

AIG, for example, aims to participate in Europe's carbon-trading system. Wrote the news magazine: "Even though the United States has not signed on to Kyoto and does not participate, AIG says it will invest in projects around the globe aimed at generating credits to trade on this market … AIG also wants to advise corporations, consulting with them on how to get into the carbon market and even developing a new insurance policy to protect against the risk of a project's failure to generate tradable credits."

There are also many investors looking for U.N. approval of green energy projects so they can trade credits. Weather derivatives, which allow energy companies and other businesses dependent upon weather to hedge the risk of excessively hot conditions or drought, went from $8 billion to at least $40 billion in just the past year. Another new area of business may be protecting companies against climate-change lawsuits.
U.S. News & World Report , June 5."


Hillary Clinton was right -- cleaning up the environment is good for business.