Weekly Update - 23 July 2021

Sustainable investments account for more than a third of global assets
According to the Global Sustainable Investment Alliance (GSIA), sustainable investment reached $35.3trn in 2020, growth of 15% in two years, and in total representing 36% of all professionally managed assets across the United States, Canada, Japan, Australasia and Europe. GSIA says it uses an “inclusive definition of sustainable investing” for the report, covering strategies such as ESG integration, norms-based screening, best-in-class screening and impact investing. The most common sustainable investment strategy is ESG integration, with $24.6trn in assets under management. Canada and the United States saw the strongest growth over the last two years with 48% and 42% respectively. Europe, by contrast, saw its proportion of sustainable investments fall from 48.8% in 2018 to 41.6% in 2020.

Venture capital investment in space tech have surged
The interest in space technology has been piqued by the missions of billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos to venture into space. Because of that, space tech companies have been looking at building more infrastructure to keep space exploration going. According to market research firm PitchBook, space tech companies have raised a recordshattering $3.6 billion in the first six months of 2021, following the $5.5 billion investments in all of 2020. According to a Bloomberg report, the industry is worth $200 billion and encompasses various kinds of buildings of products for space travel and colonization missions, along with things to use on Earth like satellite communications and imagery, Earth monitoring and geospatial analytics.

Global public and private spending on clean energy is far too low
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), only a small portion of the global government’s recovery spending in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has been allocated to clean energy measures, while global carbon emissions are on track to reach an all-time high by 2023. Indeed, the IEA report says of about $16 trillion that's been mobilized by governments worldwide for stability throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, most has focused on emergency fiscal relief for households and businesses and only about 2% of this spending has been allocated to clean energy measures. Governments plan to increase public and private spending on clean energy by $350 billion, which is well below the $1 trillion level the agency says is needed in its Sustainable Recovery Plan.

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