In the wake of a year of global and national changes in climate and energy policy, investment firm Vision Ridge Partners says it has closed a $430 million private investment portfolio focused on later-stage clean energy companies and other sustainable assets.
The Sustainable Asset Fund – launched by Vision Ridge in partnership with Capricorn Investment Group and the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment – aims to deliver returns and significant environmental benefits from asset-based investment in sectors such as renewable energy generation and sustainable agriculture.
Investments include a company providing energy efficiency financing for commercial and industrial customers; an electric-vehicle fleet provider; solar projects in Massachusetts, Florida, California and Japan; an industrial energy efficiency project; and assets turning food waste into renewable energy in the Northeast.
“Our investments demonstrate that sustainable projects can make sense from a climate perspective, as well as a financial perspective,” says Reuben Munger, managing partner of Vision Ridge. “Critical policy developments in 2015, like the Clean Power Plan and the Paris climate agreement, demonstrate that opportunities in this sector are only going to grow in the short and long term. We believe that that there are real opportunities to make money when we invest to solve our generation’s greatest challenge: climate change.”
