This content is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice.
There are four ways to engage with climate investing:
  1. Publicly available/retail fossil free funds
  2. Private funds or advisories
  3. Advocate for a fossil free 401(k) at your employer
  4. Invest in crowdfunding
  5. Angel investing in early stage, private companies

1. By investing in funds for retirement or within your stock portfolio, you are likely inadvertently investing in fossil fuels.You can fix this TODAY.
Sell out of the funds that you don’t know about (or do some deep diligence) and invest in top rated fossil free funds, found here:  
https://fossilfreefunds.org/funds

2. Investing in funds and or working with investing with a climate aware or focused advisory. 
3. Advocate for a fossil free 401(k) at work so they add a fossil free option: https://www.oursphere.org/take-action

4. Invest in crowdfunding campaigns for things that matter. 

Recommendations for Crowdfunding
  • Try to cut through the marketing language of a fundraise
  • Maximize your due diligence
    • - Review historical financials and projections
  • - Review the terms to see how they may differ from a traditional equity investments: Series CF vs Series Seed
​
Pros
  • Visible, transparent, raising in public
  • ​Low minimum check size ($100)

Cons
  • Crowdfunding shares
  • No access / influence to founding team

Platforms for crowdfunding:
5. Angel investing in startups, which is dependent on whether or not a company is small enough to care about your money, and if the company is raising capital. 

**You must be accredited to angel invest.  To be accredited, you must hold income of $200,000+ for the last two years and expect to have that income going forward (OR $300,000+ if including your spouse); OR net assets, minus your home, of $1 million.**

  • AngelList syndicates - An investing syndicate sources investment opportunities, including allocations, and you decide if and how much to invest. Examples:  Climate Avengers (https://angel.co/climate-avengers-i/syndicate)and Cool Climate Collective (C3). There are thousands of syndicates with any number of themes. They’re like investing clubs.
  • AngelList rolling funds - You invest a minimum of $5k/quarter into a fund and the fund manager invests in what they think are the best opportunities. Climate Avengers and C3 both have rolling funds.
  • Individual investing - You personally scout and invest in companies. You would have to manage your own paperwork.
  • Portfolia funds - Thematic funds for investment (created by women for women, fund themes include environmental, food, aging, underserved communities). $10k minimum, 7yr life span. You can use your retirement funds to invest in their vehicle. 

AngelList and Portfolia would handle the details and paperwork for you. The syndicate and rolling fund managers take a management fee.

4. Advocate for a fossil free 401(k) at work: https://www.oursphere.org/take-action

Want to learn more about angel investing? Join us for this webinar: