Almost 410 billion euros were invested in green investments in 2021 in Germany alone - an increase of 65 per cent compared to the previous year. In 2013, when the topic of sustainability was not yet an all-encompassing social megatrend and investments in green capital investments in Germany amounted to just 31 billion euros, a pioneer in the field of sustainable investing was launched: the crowdinvesting platform Econeers from Dresden.
Econeers is a sister of the crowdinvesting platform Seedmatch, through which small investors have been able to invest in start-ups and growth companies since 2011. This is how Seedmatch made the crowdinvesting principle - many backers invest together in a company or project and get the chance of a financial return - popular in Germany. After two successful years, the team at OneCrowd - the company behind Seedmatch and Econeers - transferred the principle to the sustainable investment platform in 2013. "At first, we at Econeers focused exclusively on financing renewable energy projects, especially solar parks, for a few years," recalls OneCrowd CEO Johannes Ranscht. "However, we quickly noticed that our investors also liked to participate in sustainable companies from other sectors, for example in the areas of nutrition or mobility. Therefore, we have successively expanded our portfolio to include green companies beyond renewable energies."
Funding volume of almost 10 million euros in 2022 alone
Meanwhile, Econeers not only offers investment options in many different green industries - there are also several investment models to choose from, which focus either on predictable fixed interest rates or on participation in the successful development of the companies. Securities in the form of shares and corporate bonds can also be subscribed to through Econeers. In total, the nearly 16,000 Econeers users have already invested more than 28 million euros in 47 green companies or projects, helping to save 75,000 tonnes of environmentally harmful CO2.
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"For about a year now, we have seen a further increase in investor interest in green investments," Johannes Ranscht sums up. "In 2022 alone, Econeers was able to collect almost 10 million euros in funding volume - more than a third of its total performance since 2013. In a survey of investors across all OneCrowd platforms with 768 participants, 30 percent of respondents said they were particularly interested in investments in the field of sustainability and environmental protection; another 27 percent preferred to invest in renewable energies. We see the reasons for this on the one hand, of course, in the general megatrend of sustainability, which has taken hold of all areas of society, including investment. On the other hand, the desire to promote a sustainable, self-sufficient energy supply has been particularly noticeable since the start of the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis."
Catalogue of criteria ensures sustainability of investments
To ensure that the investments offered are truly sustainable and have a positive environmental, social and societal impact, Econeers has developed a multi-stage selection process based on a comprehensive catalogue of sustainability criteria. In the first step, projects are excluded that definitely do not fit Econeers' investment focus, for example because they promote conventional energy sources, have a negative impact on the environment, use animal testing or engage in controversial economic practices. All remaining applications will be assessed against Econeers' sustainability criteria, which are based on the United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). "It is important to us that the selected companies contribute to several of these goals with their products and business model and can also transparently prove this," says Johannes Ranscht.
Econeers operates in a carbon-neutral way
However, Econeers not only brokers sustainable investments, but is also committed to environmental and climate protection itself. They started by participating in the tree planting campaign "My tree - my Dresden" and by taking care of their own flower bed at the at the Dresden Environmental Centre, where an endangered plant species is cultivated and propagated. Since the end of 2022, the business operations of OneCrowd, the company behind Econeers and its sister platforms, have also been certified as climate neutral. Climate neutral" refers to companies, processes and products whose greenhouse gas emissions have been calculated and offset by supporting internationally recognised climate protection projects. As part of its certification, OneCrowd has worked with the service provider ClimatePartner and offset its environmental footprint of 64 tonnes of greenhouse gases calculated for the full year 2021 by supporting a project that prevents the commercial deforestation of rainforests in South America. Certification and offsetting will be renewed annually going forward.
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"As the operator of a crowdinvesting platform focused on sustainable investments and also in general as a forward-looking company, it is important for us to actively engage in our environment and in slowing down climate change," says Johannes Ranscht. "We are taking responsibility and, with the certification of our business operations as climate-neutral, we are now also showing in a completely transparent way that everyone can understand what emissions we are currently causing and what we are specifically doing to avoid, reduce and compensate for them - in our anniversary year 2023 and beyond." (mfo)
