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Using
Industry Contributions to Restoring Great Lakes Ecosystem Function as
a Guide to Investing
Orie
L. Loucks
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio
This paper consider
whether good environmental performance by corporations affecting Great
lakes ecosystem function can serve as a basis for investment advice. Resource
conservation by business can be seen as an opportunity to create value
in the Great Lakes region over and above the direct total return from
investment, of businesses that manage resources well. Such investment
advice requires working of the environmental fundamentals of companies
so that investors can rely on recommendations about their products or
production processes being supportive of the region's resources. Our recent
work on scoring the environmental performance of publicly traded companies
is seen here as part of a progression toward improved technical analysis.
We consider environmental fundamentals in terms of ten major Great Lakes
ecosystem functions and 36 associated services. Our criteria evaluate
business decisions and supports incentives as well as investment advice.
Documentation of regional ecosystem benefits provides useful information
for all capital market analysts. Ratings range from AAA for the most significant
and geographically extensive conservation measures to BB for simple maintenance
of the status quo, to C, for performance that is qualitatively negative.
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