Publications
Publications
- 2022
- HBS Working Paper Series
Climate Solutions Investments
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang
Abstract
An increasing number of companies are providing products and services that help reduce carbon emissions in the economy. We develop a methodology to identify those companies and create a sample of publicly listed climate solutions companies allowing us to study their geographic composition, accounting fundamentals, valuation ratios, and stock performance over time. The sample is equally split between developed and emerging markets with more companies located in China rather than the US or the EU. A portfolio of climate solutions companies exhibits higher revenue growth, higher investments in research and development, and talent and lower profitability margin. The portfolio exhibits superior stock market performance since 2018, driven by solutions in energy, fuels, battery, and transportation. Finally, the portfolio’s returns exhibit very little correlation with the returns of portfolios that seek to reduce their carbon emissions by underweighting high carbon emission companies, suggesting that climate solutions portfolios are distinct from low carbon emission indices.
Keywords
Decarbonization; Climate Finance; Climate Impact; Climate Risk; Environment; Sustainability; Carbon Emissions; Electric Vehicles; Energy; Renewables; Climate Change; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Renewable Energy; Transportation Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Energy Industry; Industrial Products Industry; China; United States; Asia; Europe
Citation
Cheema-Fox, Alex, George Serafeim, and Hui (Stacie) Wang. "Climate Solutions Investments." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 22-054, January 2022.