Invested In Climate

Climate-first investing with GreenPortfolio & Earth Equity Advisors, Ep #66

Sep 5, 2023

43:40

From the growing demand for climate-positive investing, new funds, new approaches for financial advisors, and entirely new platforms for managing one's investments are taking off. This is just the beginning. It's hard to imagine how different investing might be as tens of trillions of dollars transfer to younger sustainability-motivated generations.

Today’s conversation is with two people working to change how people invest today to participate in and support the unique opportunity that is the climate transition. Pete Krull is a Partner & the Director of Sustainable Investments at Earth Equity Advisors, a firm he founded almost 20 years ago. Bonnie Gurry is Co-Founder and CEO of GreenPortfolio, a new startup aimed at creating an online financial management platform like Mint.com focused on climate-first investing. We talk about their backgrounds, their companies, the trends, opportunities and evolution they’re seeing in climate investing, and much more. Enjoy!

In today’s episode, we cover:

[3:09] Bonnie’s background & how she came to start GreenPortfolio
[4:22] Pete's background, Earth Equity Advisors & the problem they’re helping solve
[7:29] Advantages of working with a firm of Earth Equity Advisors’ size
[8:22] What makes Earth Equity Advisors unique right now
[8:59] GreenPortfolio, the problem they’re addressing and how the platform & product works
[10:54] GreenPortfolio’s climate scorecard & what's involved in considering investment opportunity
[12:37] How far along GreenPortfolio is
[14:15] Earth Equity Advisors’ free impact x-ray of one’s investments
[19:46] How does Earth Equity Advisors’ process differ & offer more sustainable options
[21:20] Responses to investing in the traditional energy sector
[25:18] Earth Equity Advisors’ benchmarking & how it works in practice
[27:33] What is it that GreenPortfolio allows users to do after auditing their investments
[30:15] What would make a credit card worth recommending
[32:27] Investing in renewable energy
[35:51] How the investment landscape has been changing & what’s coming next
[40:07] The backlash to ESG