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"We do a lot of solar and made a lot of money"


In the world of investment, "family offices" are what it sounds like they are. They are the offices that handle the investment portfolio of particular rich families, some of which seem to hire an outsider to the family to manage the portfolio in much the same spirit as that in which they might hire a live-in maid.

Sometimes running a family office is a young person's ticket into the investment industry, and he/she will get hired for bigger things by a Wall Street bank impressed by the demonstrated acumen. At other times, though, the families actually hire established bigwigs AWAY from Wall Street or the big London firms.

Anyway, family offices have themselves become a "beat" for financial reporters. In that spirit, I observe that FOs have as a group taken a lot of interest in the issue of "sustainable" investing. That is, investing in companies that do business in a way that will allow us to sustain ourselves on this planet.

The principal of a private multi-family office in Florida said, “We do a lot of solar and made a lot of money over the last year and a half. The whole sector is up.”

Separately: 69% of FO respondents in North America agreed with the statement, “The wealth community needs to do more to combat climate change.”  

Those two statements are from different points of view, but they are not conflicting. You can "do well by doing good" by, say, looking for the new-but-scalable non-hydrocarbon energy system and getting in on its ground floor.

Just putting it out there.


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