facebookESG investing is all the rage now. Is hydrogen the next fossil fuel? Would you use ESG stocks in replacement of the traditional oil and gas stocks for your portfolio? - Seedly

Anonymous

25 Nov 2020

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ESG investing is all the rage now. Is hydrogen the next fossil fuel? Would you use ESG stocks in replacement of the traditional oil and gas stocks for your portfolio?

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Justin Mok

25 Nov 2020

Bachelor of Business Management at Singapore Management University

Hi there!

Completely agree with you on the point that ESG investing is starting to pick up momentum.

Blackrock recently announced to push for greater reporting standards for ESG and sustainability. Coming from the largest Asset Manager in the world, it is certain that other companies would follow suit. On top of that, Blackrock has a proxy covenant that requires its companies that they have stake in, to meet a certain level of ESG rating to be part of its portfolio. Several agencies has also pushed for better ESG reporting, as well as consultant firms like the Big Four, coming up with their own reporting framework for companies. I see a great paradigm shift towards sustainable finance - and that is a huge huge opportunity for retail investors like us.

For the question on Hydrogen Fuel, I am no Chemist nor Engineer. However, the current problem with Hydrogen that is it loses most of its energy efficiency during the electrolysis and transportation process (from source to sink) - because of its volatile nature, it has to keep changing in states (gas liquid gas) - not very economically sensible for day-to-day usage. However, I do think that it has great potential in the aerospace industry because of its high energy density.

I would rather place my bets on Solar or Wind as of now, as the infrastructure cost is starting to decline and we are seeing price parity with traditional oil and gas (fossil fuel). Many countries are now pushing for more Solar panels especially on Plains (tropical countries) and attached to buildings. According to Shell, the Paris Sky scenario estimates solar energy making up 32% of the total energy source (Shell, 2020) - largest amongst the rest (Oil, NatGas, Coal, Bionenergy, Nuclear, Wind, and others).

I am certainly loading up on ESG stocks like Solar cell producers and inverter manufacturers, (including Tesla haha, even though they are still using cobalt in their battery cells - which is susceptible to child labor in countries like Congo, but they will stop relying on it soon).

ESG/Sustainable finance is a huge space, and it is essentially risk management as well. Companies with higher rated ESG tend to outperform those with lower ESG rating (Brammer & Millington, 2008).

Just my humble opinion ~​​​

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