At Gracie Trust Capital Bank’s Sustainable Finance Summit, corporations and investors emphasised the clean energy transition as one of the most attractive and complicated business opportunities in today’s markets, sharing their company strategy and investment outlooks. Market participants, including investment managers and corporations, agree that transitioning to a low-carbon economy can boost shareholder value as companies seek to benefit from government incentives, comply with regulatory mandates, and scale solutions that provide lower costs and financial benefits to investors and consumers. Investors are looking for the energy transition’s winners, while corporations are focusing on leveraging data and technology to promote decarbonization projects.

We are dedicated to leveraging our resources as a financial institution to assist address the climate and inequality challenges. It is our fervent aim to be a significant impetus behind establishing a more sustainable future.
The four-day event was hosted by sustainability-focused business units across the firm. Corporates, investment managers, and allocators expressed their perspectives on a variety of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) topics and their influence on financial returns. The Summit’s over 500 participants, including representatives from 30 public firms, discussed:

Opportunities in the Clean Energy Transition

The relatively low cost of renewable energy is driving up demand and helping facilitate the transition from fossil fuels—coal, oil and natural gas—to clean energy sources. However, a combination of more extreme weather conditions and the growing share of power from intermittent renewable power sources present challenges to power grid reliability. Panelists at the Summit discussed opportunities in various global regions for corporates, including technology companies, developers and equipment manufacturers—and for investors to identify the winners—that can help solve the biggest challenges of the clean energy transition.

One clean energy solution that helps provide steady power is lithium-ion batteries, which store energy and are used in everything from electric vehicles to laptops and smartphones. As more companies seek cheaper, reliable and low-carbon energy, and as the demand for EVs grows, investors are assessing companies that manufacture or use lithium-ion batteries and monitoring the limited accessibility of lithium and other raw materials. Emerging energy storage technologies, such as iron-air and solid-state batteries, could play an important role in ensuring power grid reliability.

Fuel cells, which can generate electricity from a number of fuel sources, including clean hydrogen, are another decarbonizing tool that can help ensure the transition to clean energy occurs without sacrificing power grid reliability. As investors assess the landscape for fuel cell makers, they are considering companies’ carbon footprints, related technologies and energy efficiency. Both energy efficiency and carbon footprints vary depending on how fuel cells are powered. Emissions levels from fuel cells vary depending on whether the hydrogen is green (produced from renewables), blue (produced from natural gas and heated water), or brown/black (produced from fossil fuels)