Valores para invertir con el cambio climático

Recent events underscore the growing impact of climate change on everyday life and the economy. Extreme weather phenomena, including prolonged heatwaves, wildfires, droughts, and floods, have become increasingly frequent and severe worldwide. While individual events cannot be isolated, they reinforce a broader trend: climate change is increasingly influencing how economies generate energy, manage water resources, cool buildings, transport goods, and construct resilient infrastructure.

Joseph Fernandes, a product investment and variable income analyst at Schroders, notes that this scenario is opening up numerous investment opportunities. Experts consulted by EXPANSIÓN highlight four main areas for investment:

1. Building cooling, refrigeration, and energy efficiency

2. Water: treatment, reuse, desalination, pumping, smart measurement, and pipe renewal

3. Flood and fire protection, precision agriculture, waste management, and circular economy

4. Strategic materials, especially copper and certain metals needed for grids, storage, and electrification.

When allocating investments, Antonio Castelo, an iBroker analyst, advises focusing on companies that benefit from climate change but are not solely dependent on it for profits. Diversifying business operations helps reduce risk. For instance, Carrier Global and Trane Technologies, which experienced a 65% increase in commercial air conditioning requests and a 300% surge in data center demand during the second quarter, are among the international picks.

J. Safra Sarasin Sustainable AM (JSS AM) includes Iberdrola, Solaria, Grenergy, and Cox in their climatic change investment strategy, favoring companies that provide enabling technologies for climate transition and adaptation, rather than trying to predict specific scenarios or invest directly in companies vulnerable to specific weather changes.

Trane, a global leader in high-efficiency HVAC solutions, shows a potential 12-month revaluation of nearly 20%, according to Bloomberg consensus. Water, another opportunity, is exposed to the structural increase in infrastructure investment and efficiency through water use, as highlighted by Xylem, whose orders reached $3.1 billion in the last quarter, a 41% organic growth, and a 16% increase in adjusted earnings per share.

Veolia is particularly interesting in Europe, combining water, waste, and environmental services for comprehensive exposure to adaptation and resource security. Extraction and electrification, favored by JSS AM, include Sandvik, which supplies advanced equipment for the mining industry and automation and electrification solutions, enabling more efficient extraction of critical materials like copper, essential for expanding and modernizing electrical infrastructure.

Schneider Electric and Eaton are also favored for electrification, with Schneider Electric's organic revenue growth of 14% in the first half and adjusted EBITDA growth of 22%, driven by strong demand in data centers, grids, and energy management. Eaton reported a 14% organic growth in the same period, with an electric business order backlog 43% higher than a year earlier.

JSS AM also includes Iberdrola, not a pure climate bet, which Castelo considers a virtue due to the combination of regulated networks, renewables, and electrification, providing visibility of benefits and reducing dependence on the favorable price of a specific technology. Renewable energy is considered the most obvious and observed sector in the investment trend to profit from climate change by Javier Cabrera, an XTB analyst, but it should not be overlooked.