New indices help investors track clean energy investments

As investor interest in cleantech, green technology and socially responsible businesses becomes keener, NYSE Euronext is stepping up in partnership with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The two companies have created three new stock indices to keep tabs on companies working on clean energy technologies and services.

The three new indices cover the Americans, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa), and Asia/Oceania. Each index will cover from 125 to 325 companies that have at least a moderate exposure to renewable energy or energy-smart technologies. (For energy-smart, think smart grid, energy storage or energy efficiency.)

Said George Patterson, managing director of European indices for NYSE Euronext Global Index Group:

"The new indices provide a solid foundation for tracking the regional exposures by domicile for clean energy initiatives while accurately weighing each company's economic exposure to their respective sector."

In short, one reason that the indices are arranged on a regional basis is because the regulatory climates and investment attitudes are fluctuating so dramatically right now.

Another interesting development is that there are more companies in the index for Asia and Oceania than there are in the Americas and EMEA indices combined.

There are future indices planned byt NYSE Euronext and Bloomberg, including an index for tracking solar power companies; one for wind companies; one for energy-smart technologies (using the description I gave above); and one for electric vehicle technology and development.

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com