Weekend Book Review – The Green Investing Handbook

The Green Investing Handbook: A detailed investment guide to the technologies and companies involved in the sustainability revolution
By Nick Hanna

A book review by Richard Gill of the AIM & PLUS Newsletter

Whether you believe in man made global warming or not, as an investor you can not ignore the vast potential which the renewables sector has to offer. Oil and gas can not last forever, humans are continually looking for alternative energy sources and – driven by a strong political and social agenda – governments are still subsidising a number of carbon emission reduction schemes. To date renewable energy companies have not had the best track record but if this book is to be believed there is still a lot of “green” money to be made out there.

In The Green Investing Handbook Nick Hanna provides a detailed guide to both the technologies and companies operating within the renewables sector. The main portion of the book is divided into ten sections, covering the various sub-sectors of the industry. Areas such as wind energy, solar power, marine energy and fuel cells are covered in depth, with the intricacies of each industry explained in a manner which is easy to understand. Refreshingly, the book does not really have a political stand point, being written with making money in mind and not from the Al Gore “our children are going to die a horrible death” point of view.

Around a third of the book is dedicated to a directory of publicly listed green companies which are vying for your cash, as well as a number of green funds, indices, and investment funds which you could make money on. While the book does not give any specific investment recommendations or detailed financial analysis the information within it is sufficient for investors to make up their own minds.

Overall, this is a comprehensive review of the green sector, which arms investors with a useful body of knowledge with which investments in the renewable energy sector can be reviewed and analysed. The book, alternatives to which are few and far between, is primarily aimed at private investors but I would also recommend it to those within the finance industry who are looking to take advantage of a potentially lucrative sector. While the sector is developing very quickly the book may well become to green investing what the Zulu Principle is to value investing.