Fossil Fuel-Free ETF brings Wall Street closer to Climate Change

On December 1st, the SPDR S&P 500 Fossil Fuel Free ETF (SPYX) will be launched as the greener version of the SDPR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY). This shows an overall global trend to investing in lowering our carbon footprint. This trend could have huge implications as the world shifts to less fossil fuel based industries because it could spell trouble for companies that rely heavily on the non-renewable energy business. The new ETF (Exchange Traded Fund) breaks up the S&P 500 of companies that own fossil fuel reserves. “While that's far from totally cleaning up an index that includes several carbon-emitting companies in different industries—namely, transportation—it does remove Big Oil, one of the largest offenders.” This statement made from Bloomberg Business also shows how important this could be, as it could set off a chain of events that cause more companies to invest more heavily in renewable energy, as well as cutting off companies who are huge in the oil business.

One of the main reasons that companies are making these changes to get rid of fossil fuel ties is that many activists and investors are disassociating themselves from companies involved with nonrenewable sources of energy. The new fund is advantageous to companies that are striving to become greener and are taking larger strides to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as they are added to the list of 400 companies that will be publicly traded on Wall Street through this ETF. “It’s still a commonly held belief that sustainable investing means you don’t care as much about your financial performance,” said Ian Monroe, co-founding president and chief sustainability officer at Etho Capital in San Francisco. He later goes onto explain that purpose of this new fund is to create an investment market that is superior in terms of sustainability and financial performance.