The group of companies that derive significant revenue from environmental solutions, known as the green economy, has topped $10 trillion in market value, a new report found.
That milestone was tied to a 5.3 percent growth in green revenue last year, according to the London Stock Exchange Group’s report, released Wednesday. Green companies—those with at least one-fifth of their revenue coming from environmentally focused activities—outperformed the broader market by around 12 percent over the past decade.
The report demonstrates green businesses’ resilience in the face of political and social pushback, particularly as major economies such as the United States retreat from climate investment.
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at the Columbia Business School who independently reviewed the report, said market capitalization, or a company’s total value, is “what makes the world go round” by demonstrating profitability to investors.
“Market capitalization, if and when measured properly, is a sign that there are investors who have $10 trillion of capital sitting in the clean, green, low-carbon economy, expecting market returns—sizable returns, reasonable returns, average returns—and that’s a big deal,” Wagner said.
