Photo by: reuters
The Standard Bank Group has been named one of the world’s greenest banks by Bloomberg Markets, ranked eighteenth out of 20 global finance institutions recognised for their investments in green-energy projects and efforts to reduce their own waste and carbon footprints.
The banking group was the only South Africa-headquartered bank included in the yearly World’s Greenest Banks report, which based its rankings on material gathered from yearly and corporate-social responsibility reports, websites and other public documents covering the banks’ 2013 fiscal years.
The report, released on Tuesday noted that, as global investments in clean energy sank 11% to $245-billion last year, banks hit on a new opportunity: funding, advising and leading the initial funding offering of renewable-power investment firms known as yield companies.
“’Yieldcos’, as they’re known, grow by purchasing the solar, wind and other power plants that supply utilities under long-term contracts. From a trickle
a few years ago, they’ve raised more than $3.8-billion since last year,” the report read.
Investors – especially banks – liked to invest in ‘yieldcos’, as utilities paid the firms a “steady stream of cash” for the electricity produced by their solar and wind installations.