The market for reforestation products is heating up, and with good cause. One of the best sources of renewable wealth in the world is trees. Investments in timberland have performed better than the stock market for as long as records have been kept. Of course, the socially responsible investment community is leery of investing in timber companies, but not all companies in this space were created equal.

Mismanagement and the Need for Reforestation Products

Sadly, misguided use of rare assets like old-growth forests has resulted in great damage to our forests world-wide. Further, overuse of genetically modified seed stock by tree cultivators has led to forest populations which are vulnerable to blights like the northern pine beetle, which is presently causing a crisis in Canada’s timberlands. The good news is that the crisis has created an excellent green investment opportunity.

The Opportunity: Reforestation Products Investments

A group of companies is dedicated to helping to reverse the damage cause by deforestation, as well as supplying reforestation products such as seeds and seedlings to timber companies that focus on harvesting robust cultivated trees. The market for reforestation products is absolutely exploding in Canada, due to the pine beetle crisis, and in China, due to decades of poorly managed deforestation. There are a number of Canadian companies which are set to profit significantly from these conditions. The most exciting investment prospect we’ve seen so far is Pacific Regeneration Technologies (”PRT”).

The Reforestation Business

PRT operates a large network of tree nurseries throughout Canada and the Northern United States. Their primary reforestation product is high-quality tree seedlings ideal for reforestation projects. They focus on native plant restoration, rebuilding robust and diverse plant populations. They work closely with their customers to study the local ecosystems where projects take place, in order to recreate lost forest lands as faithfully as possible. This results in stronger populations more capable of surviving the threat of invasive species like the Northern pine beetle.

Huge Dividends From for Reforestation Products

The company trades on the Toronto stock exchange under the symbol PRT.UN. The business is well established, highly profitable, and pays excellent dividends. At the time of writing, its dividend yield is a staggering 12.43%. The dividend alone would make this company an excellent investment. However, given the projected growth for the sector, and PRT’s dominant position, we can expect strong capital appreciation as well.

There can be few business more beneficial the the environment than reforestation products. Further, the financial prospects for this business look promising indeed. Altogether, that makes PRT an exciting prospect for your green investment portfolio.

There’s no mistaking it — green stocks are hot. One of the side benefits of high oil prices is that alternative energy sources are looking more economical by the day. Investors are taking note, and green energy has been on a tear in the markets. We believe the boom in green stocks is just beginning, however. Ultimately, the days are numbered for unsustainable businesses, and there are great profit opportunities for those who get in early on the first wave of new businesses that will take their place.

Green Stocks to Watch

Renewable energy is not the only category of green stock out there, of course, but it’s the one with the most potential at present. Energy policy is on the news daily, and mainstream America is finally starting to wake up to the need for new energy sources, not just to curb global warming, but to move toward energy independence, and ultimately, peace.

Hot Green Stock Sector: Solar

When you get right down to it, all energy on Earth is solar. Oil and coal come from fossils of plants and animals. The energy stored in plant matter comes from the sun. Animals who eat plants therefore get their energy from the sun as well, albeit indirectly. Wind power comes from weather patterns that are powered ultimately by the sun. The list goes on and on. The potential of solar power is practically infinite. So doesn’t it make more sense to harvest it directly? Solar energy is infinitely renewable, and clean growing in profitability, making solar companies some of the best green stocks in the world.

Solar technology is in the early stages of a renaissance, with rapid advances making its production faster, cheaper, and more efficient every day. These green stocks are booming. For example, First Solar (NASDAQ:FSLR) soared 470% in 2007. Don’t fret that you’ve missed the boat, however. There are many more opportunities to come in this sector.

Hot Green Stock Sector: Geothermal

The earth absorbs the majority of the energy the sun emits into the atmosphere in the form of heat. This heat, combined with heat radiating from the earth’s core, can be used for a wide variety of purposes, including generating electricity, heating your home, or producing hot water. Iceland now gets the bulk of its energy from its rich geothermal resources. As it turns out, America has excellent geothermal resources as well, mostly in the West. The industry is still nascent here, but it has big potential. One rock-solid Green stock in this space is Ormat (NYSE:ORA). They have a solid financial foundation, and supply equipment and technology to many prominent geothermal producers.

There are a number of smaller players in this space as well. Many of these small cap green stocks offer big growth potential. Stay tuned for more.

Hot Green Stock Sector: Biofuel

Biofuel is a broad term which includes fuel generated from any cultivated biological source. It includes biodiesel, ethanol, biomass, and others. Ethanol, particularly corn ethanol, has dominated the news in recent years. We are skeptical of the long term potential for corn ethanol, due to its poor energy yield. Other forms of ethanol, such as cellolosic ethanol from trees, sugar cane, and switch grass, are much more promising. Sugar cane ethanol in particular has been instrumental in helping Brazil reach energy independence.

One way to get into the biofuel sector is to invest in reforestation products . Companies like PRT Reforestation (TSE:PRT.UN) produce tree seedlings for reforestation projects and timber companies. They are some of the best green stocks on the market today. The trees can be harvested to produce cellulosic ethanol, and their seeds may be used to produce seed oils which can be made into biodiesel. The reforestation business is booming, and there’s no end in sight.

The Future is Bright for Green Stocks

The future looks very promising for green stocks. The world is slowly but surely waking up to the need for a new way of doing business. Companies are learning that green business is good business. Take advantage of your foresight and invest now, and you should see great dividends in the years to come. Your heirs, and your planet, will thank you.

What exactly is green investing ? What does it mean to you? Ask someone to define it, and most would give similar a similar answer — something along the lines of, “green investing is investing in environmentally friendly businesses.” But when you get down to discussing specific companies, many would disagree as to precisely which are “environmentally friendly” and which are not.

This is perhaps best illustrated with an example. Let’s say I mentioned an oil company as an investment prospect. Most would dismiss this company as a green investment off-hand. What if, however, I told you that the company had discovered a new technique for extracting oil that did less environmental harm than traditional drilling? Would that make you reconsider? What if I also told you that the oil this technique produces burns cleaner than the highest commonly known grade of oil? Could that potentially change your mind? What if I then added that this technique has the potential to give the U.S. complete energy independence?

Idealism vs. Pragmatism in Green Investing

The dilemma is easy to see. On the one hand, the production of oil can hardly be called an eco-friendly business. On the other hand, weaning the world off of oil entirely in the immediate future simply is not realistic, and this company at least reduces the harm done by oil production. And no one can seriously debate the desirability of U.S. energy independence.

Keep Things in Perspective When Considering What is Truly “Green” Investing

Some might still reject investment in such a company out of principle. This is fine — we all have finite funds to invest, and there’s nothing wrong with choosing to focus your investments on more genuinely renewable ventures. Just try to understand the perspective of those who take a more pragmatic approach, and understand that they are part of the solution as well. Moving the world toward a new paradigm of green energy and social justice is a vast and complex problem, and ultimately will have to be an incremental process.

I mention this because we will be covering both types of green investing here: the more idealistic plays on truly renewable sources like wind and solar, and what I would call “compromise” plays, like the example above. Naturally we are well aware of corporate green-washing efforts, and we’ll make every effort to expose them for what they are. But we may consider investments in companies that are not perfectly green (no business is, after all), but which we feel move us in the right direction. Some ideas, like nuclear energy plays, will be highly controversial. We hope these will produce lively debates, but never forget that we’re all on the same side, here.

Be Open Minded With Regard to Socially Responsible Investing

In short, green investing to us is investing in businesses that move us toward a more sustainable global economy. Whether the steps involved are baby steps or giant leaps, all deserve consideration, because ultimately we need all the help we can get. Whether you lean toward the more idealistic or the more pragmatic philosophy of green investing, your ideas are important, and we hope you will join the conversation.

I’ve decided to start my own personal investment blacklist. These are companies I refuse to frequent or invest in because of personal experiences I have had with them. I’m sticking to personal experiences because I’d like to keep the message of this site primarily positive and stay focused on hunting out companies that are doing things right. However, when I witness corporate wrong-doing first-hand, I will announce my divestiture here. As you can guess from the title, the first entry on my list is Home Depot.

How did Home Depot End Up on My Investment Blacklist?

As I mentioned, I have not made it my mission to actively ferret our corporate wrong-doing, so I can’t comment on Home Depot’s environmental record as a whole. But often a single action can reveal a company’s overall attitude toward the environment, its customers, and humanity in general.

This afternoon I was shopping at my local Home Depot’s garden section, mainly because it was late afternoon and it was the only nursery in town that was still open. I discovered on a pallet in the back a collection of dried up or wilted plants. One of them was actually a very nice flowering quince, which I could use for my garden. The leaves and fruit were all dried out and dead, but the stems were still green, and the plant was perfectly viable.

A Policy of Deliberate Waste

I asked the floor worker what the deal was with the plants, and she said they were “marked down,” which meant that they would be receiving a refund for them from the grower. “so the grower takes them back, then?” I asked.

“No,” she said, “we just throw them in the dumpster.”

“I see. Well let me just take this one off your hands, then.” I replied.

“We’re not allowed to do that, sir.”

As it turns out, the corporation does not even allow them to sell the plants at a discount. It’s their policy to require that they be tossed into the dumpster. They insist on wasting perfectly viable plants, the plastic pots they come in, the wooden pallets they are shipped on, the energy required to ship them, the landfill space to take them, and all the energy and water required to grow them in the first place. This is despite the fact that disposing of them actually costs the company money, and frankly I’d be doing them a favor by taking some of them off their hands. However, the floor-worker said she’d be fired if she allowed me to take one of the dumpster-bound plants.

Using Rent-A-Cops to Help Ensure that Nothing is Salvaged

Naturally after this conversation I wondered if there were a bunch of viable plants in the Home Depot dumpster that I could use to help get my garden going. So I drove around behind the store to have a look. There I discovered that the dumpster was locked up in chains. To add insult to injury, a morbidly obese security guard came up and hassled me for being there as well, even though this was in a public strip-mall, the company does not own the property, and there were no signs posted against trespassing.

The security guard, wheezing from her 30-yard walk, attempted to interrogate me about what I was up to. When I told her I was a lawyer, was well aware of my rights, had every right to be there, and was under no obligation to tell her anything at all, she mentioned something about monitoring me on a security camera and waddled away.

Malfeasance vs. Nonfeasance

It’s a standard policy in American law that malfeasance, or active wrong-doing, is worse than nonfeasance, or the simple failure to do what’s right. This makes intuitive sense to most people - failing to save a drowning man when you are able is bad, but not as bad as holding his head down.

Much of the staggering amount of waste and environmental damage generated by corporations every year can be attributed to nonfeasance. Apathy, sloth, cost-cutting measures, etc. As bad as that is, however, active malfeasance like the deliberate waste created by this policy of Home Depot’s is much worse. Apparently it was so important to the company that these plants end up in the dumpster, rather than my garden, that they were prepared to lose money in order to make it happen. I left the premises, disgusted, never to return, and sold all of my shares in Home Depot the following morning.

A Danger to Shareholders

Any company that is actually willing to lose money in order to maintain such a senseless policy is not only an environmental liability, it’s also a questionable investment. It’s true that Home Depot has excellent standing in the markets at present, but the tide is turning on these types of policies. The market is starting to wake up to the need for more responsible business practices, and consumers are at last beginning to factor them into their shopping decisions. If the trend continues (and let’s all hope and pray that it does), shareholders of more short-sighted companies had best keep a close eye on them, or they may be in for a nasty surprise down the line.

Welcome to the blacklist, Home Depot. In one petty action, you have lost my substantial business, my investment capital, and my respect.

I discovered this ad for FightGlobalWarming.com on the Wash. As you might imagine, opinions on it have been mixed, but I like it, for reasons which are just as unsettling as the ad itself. I firmly believe that the baby boomer generation must face up to its staggering selfishness, which has saddled its children (read: us) with one terrible burden after another, including:

• A bankrupt government because of the outrageous fiscal excesses on their watch.
• An ever accelerating rise of corporatism which is steadily chipping away at our personal rights and liberties and moving us closer and closer to what Ron Paul called a “soft form of fascism.”
• A bankrupt social security system, which will result eventually in massive new taxes we will have to pay in order to support the retirements of the very greedy, selfish people who bankrupted it in the first place.
• A rapidly failing currency which will result in terrible hardship for the poor and middle class.
• And worst of all, the destruction of our environment

I suspect the only way to get the “Me Generation” to face up to the consequences of its actions is a slap in the face like this one (with many more to follow). The editors of the Wash had a somewhat different perspective, offering the following criticism for the ad:

One more thing I’d like to point out that troubles me about this ad: the use of a Caucasian blonde girl. I find this inappropriate; she’s not the one that will be affected by global warming first, it will be the children in developing countries with no food or water.

I understand and admire their desire to keep the message positive. And they are certainly correct that Third World countries will be the first to suffer (aren’t they always?). However, you have to consider your audience. The simple truth is that the Baby Boomers are used to tuning out images of suffering brown children every day. Images of starving kids from “over there” didn’t get us to take action on our atrocious agricultural trade policies, or stop buying sweatshop-made Nikes. Why should we expect such images to work now? When the victim is a cute little blonde haired blue eyed girl, however, Americans are far more apt to pay attention, right or wrong.

I am put in mind of the final argument scene in A Time to Kill:

This is a story about a little girl walking home from the grocery store one sunny afternoon. I want you to picture this little girl. Suddenly a truck races up. Two men jump out and grab her. They drag her into a nearby field and they tie her up and they rip her clothes from her body. Now they climb on. First one, then the other, raping her, shattering everything innocent and pure with a vicious thrust in a fog of drunken breath and sweat. And when they’re done, after they’ve killed her tiny womb, murdered any chance for her to have children, to have life beyond her own, they decide to use her for target practice. They start throwing full beer cans at her. They throw them so hard that it tears the flesh all the way to her bones. Then they urinate on her . . . [Then] they pick her up, throw her in the back of the truck and drive out to Foggy Creek Bridge. Pitch her over the edge. And she drops some thirty feet down to the creek bottom below. Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she’s white.

It’s an unfortunate fact of human nature that it’s easy to ignore suffering when it’s faced by other people, far from our eyes, different from us. And while we may hope to change this in the future, ignoring the fact of it in the present gets us nowhere. The message is too urgent to wait for us to realize at last that we’re all in this together. If being faced with the fact that your cute, blonde granddaughter will suffer terribly because of your selfishness is what it takes for you to wake up, then so be it.

I encourage you to read the Wash, though. It’s a great resource.