Morgan Stanley analyserer nye investeringsmuligheder i forbindelse med klima-satsningen og det aktuelle topmøde om reduktion af CO2-udledningen. To eksperter vurderer investor-potentialet i fødevaresektoren. Det drejer sig især om mere effektiv og højteknologisk fødevareproduktion og reduktion af omkostninger og spild.
Earth Week Investing Themes
Green investment is on investors’ minds this Earth Week: Today, a look at key investment themes across carbon capture, plastics, and agri-food developments.
Jessica Alsford: global head of sustainability research at Morgan Stanley.
Adam Virgadamo: U.S. equity strategist.
Jessica Alsford: I think there are some interesting investment opportunities, though. Precision agriculture stands out. So here you’re seeing industrial and data-based companies using technology to help farmers maximize their yields whilst also reducing the amount of fertilizers, which again are high in greenhouse gas emissions.
Alternative proteins is another growth area at the moment, plant based meat or dairy products which are growing in huge popularity. Cultured meat, where you’re actually growing meat that is genetically the same as the meat that we eat but growing it in a lab, is a new innovative area to be watching out for.
And then you’ve also got the sustainable feed element. Again, the chemical sector providing a solution, developing alternative feeds to reduce the amount of dependency on fishmeal, on fish oil for the aquaculture industry, for example, and instead to develop alternatives that might use algae or insect meal or single cell proteins. So a lot of innovation going on to reduce the environmental impact of the agri-food system.
Adam Virgadamo: I’d say there are three comments I’d want to make here.
I think the first is that investors are constantly on the lookout for long-tailed themes, where a growing addressable market can give a company today a lot of run room for growth in the future. I think each of the green paths you talked about today, whether it’s precision ag or carbon capture and storage for some companies in the market, may be doing just that.
The second point I’d make is that we spend a lot of time on the strategy team, in connection with our macro colleagues, thinking about the path for productivity on a going forward basis. We’ve made the case in the past that the economy is really due for a productivity boom. We think part of what is driving that is companies investing in new technologies to do things like reduce cost, to reduce waste.
And the last point I’d make is that one of the issues with productivity is that it’s really hard to measure. So what may happen is it may miss things like changes in quality of life. And while it’s hard to measure, I have to believe that a healthier environment means healthier people and to me that means a more productive working population which feeds into the better outlook for growth on a going forward basis.
