Soros to put $1 billion into clean-tech companies

Posted Oct 12th 2009 8:30AM by Tom Johansmeyer
Filed under: Good news, India, China, Brazil, Private Equity, Eastern Europe, Technology, Green Stocks

The clean technology wave just got a little bigger. This tends to be a side-effect of interest from billionaire investor George Soros. And, as usual, it's more than just money; it's more than just a return. Soros, yet again, is trying to save the world. Interestingly, the bold move was announced at a meeting on climate change sponsored by Project Syndicate – an international association consisting of 430 newspapers from 150 countries (and thus with clear ties to the past, rather than future).

The investor and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC is planning to put $1 billion into clean-tech opportunities using what he calls "rather stringent criteria," which involves being "profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem [i.e., of clean technology adoption and proliferation]." Soros didn't provide any other details on the nature or scope of his investments.

He's also starting an organization to advise policymakers on matters related to the environment. The Climate Policy Initiative, based in San Francisco, will receive $10 million a year from Soros for the next 10 years. The foundation will work in the United States, Europe, China, India and Brazil and focus on such issues as the problems with trading carbon emissions credits. He worries that investors would be able to manipulate the market and compromise the system, which is why he supports a tax on greenhouse gases instead.

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