Eric Glass, CEO and founder at Clarion Call Capital, joined me on a recent episode of The Impact to discuss how Clarion Call Capital is investing in an equitable future for all by using fixed income investment opportunities.
Jeff Gitterman: What are you seeing in your world as a municipal bond investor? Because … all the capital needed to fund adaptation resilience in communities … is going to have to come from the municipal markets.
Eric Glass: My experience has been very little in the municipal market, very little issuance and very little money has been dedicated to adaptation and resilience. It is a market that has been largely ignored, and I think it’s largely ignored because there’s no great profit motive to go into that. It’s a public good, it’s a human right.
JG: Can you talk to some investment themes around adaptation and resilience that you’re looking at?
EG: Clearly water and sewer, right? We haven’t figured out how to just create water on demand yet. And so one thing I know above all else, if a community doesn’t have access to clean water, they don’t have a community. It’s unlivable, it’s uninhabitable. And along with that, there’s going to be migration. So we have heat waves…
JG: Droughts, flooding and whatnot…
EG: In addition to when you don’t have water, you’re also going to have forced migration. And so a gentleman by the name of Abram Lustgarten wrote a book on the move, which basically chronicles … the potential for climate migration and the disruption that that will have in our society. It’s incredible. It’s really, really scary, and things that we kind of need to think about.
So there’s the water aspect of things, and there’s just general basic resilience in the built environment. So rain gardens, roof gardens, rain barrels, permeable pavements, tree canopy .. there are ways that we can address, not solve, but address these issues that I just don’t think have been taken seriously of late.
JG: So if you’re talking to an investor who’s out in the US and has their broker wherever, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, wherever it might be, what are some of the questions that you would point that investor to be asking their advisor around whether they’re thinking through some of these issues?
EG: I’ve always said that as an investor, talking to a broker, if you haven’t made an investment yet in that broker, the money is still in your wallet, in your pocket. And that’s the opportune time to ask those questions.
And whenever I talk with younger folks who are starting out in their investment journey … be direct, ask the questions, regardless of the asset class, what companies are you investing in that thematically are aligned with X and Y? Not just what companies there are, but what’s your thesis?
You, as my broker, are making decisions about where my money is going. How are you incorporating climate change? How are you incorporating various risks, labor risks, and climate risks? There are risks out there that I don’t necessarily think are being adequately incorporated into the investment thesis.
And look, if you have values, the whole idea here is people are trying to better align their values with the way in which they invest. What are your values? Every time you make a decision to buy a cup of coffee or to buy a car or to buy soap, you’re making a value decision. You’re uplifting something. There’s something about this product that I like that I’m going to highlight by buying it. Why are your investments different?
Watch the full interview with Eric Glass
More from Jeff Gitterman: Climate investing with a focus on decarbonization
