Al Gore's Inconvenient Greentech Truth

Al Gore’s Inconvenient Greentech Truth

Al Gore’s fund’s money is not entirely where his mouth is.

Eric Wesoff October 04, 2012

Eric Wesoff

Editor-at-Large
Greentech Media

Eric Wesoff is Editor-at-Large at Greentech Media. Prior to joining GTM, Eric Wesoff founded Sage Marketing Partners in 2000 to provide sales and marketing-consulting services to venture-capital firms and their portfolio companies in the alternative energy and telecommunications sectors. Mr. Wesoff has become a well-known, respected authority and speaker in these fields.

His expertise covers solar power, fuel cells, biofuels and advanced batteries. His strengths are in market research and analysis, business development and due diligence for investors. He frequently consults for energy startups and Silicon Valley's premier venture capitalists.

Former U.S. Vice President, Al Gore is a founder, along with David Blood, of investment firm Generation Investment Management (GIM). Gore is also an investment partner at KPCB, a storied VC firm with a wide greentech portfolio.

An SEC Form 13F from GIM reveals that of the 30 stocks in the $3.2 billion GIM Global Equities Fund, not one firm builds a PV panel, a biofuel, an EV, or a wind turbine.

According to Richard Campbell, speaking for GIM, the form "is from Generation's Global Equities Fund, which is not a greentech fund, hence the lack of greentech stocks in it -- it is a fund that invests in a broad range of global equities." Campbell added, "Generation does have a greentech fund -- its Climate Solutions Fund -- but this invests in mostly private companies, hence there are no 13F filings."

Generation Investment Management advocates for "Sustainable Capitalism." The firm's website claims that its approach is "based on the idea that sustainability factors -- economic, environmental, social and governance criteria -- will drive a company's returns over the long term."

The GIM fund's website quotes Gore as saying, "Integrating issues such as climate change into investment analysis is simply common sense."

But how does Paychex payroll services fit into a climate change thesis?

The $683 million "Climate Solutions Fund" piece of GIM has made direct, minority investments in a number of cleantech firms including SolarCity, Tigo, Ausra, and SMA.