Apple Inc. (AAPL): Are You Prepared for the Future of Investing?

Don’t let your investments dry up
Climate change and resource scarcity risk and reality will impact all of us, whether we’re investors, businesspeople, or consumers. Although storms and floods may not always sink in for many people on a day-to-day basis — after all, many destructive events are easily dismissed unless they happen in your own backyard — we have already seen disturbing peeks at ramifications.

Last year’s drought resulted in higher food prices, the type of ripple effect that impacts the financial well-being of everyone from restaurant companies and food suppliers to consumers simply shopping at the grocery store. Threats to the water supply in places like the Colorado River Basin could hurt wide swaths of people in huge states like California and Nevada — not to mention blight some very important American crops.

Still, we investors can prepare, and don’t worry: We won’t necessarily lose money doing it. In just one example of data refuting conventional wisdom that sustainable investing is financial suicide, Harvard Business School’s Professors Robert Eccles and George Serafeim conducted a particularly compelling — and very long-term — study of companies over an 18-year period.

The stock returns of 90 companies in the sample that emphasized strong sustainability initiatives in their businesses outperformed 90 companies with low sustainability standards by 4.8%. They also outperformed on metrics like return on equity and return on assets.

Successful investing has everything to do with future growth, and realistically assessing signs of what the future will look like for certain business is part of the long-term investing model. Right off the bat, the Ceres report [download required] gives a great amount of information on the topic and nails an important bottom line: Investors need to truly gear themselves for the 21st-century marketplace. It will be much different from the one we’ve grown accustomed to, and preparation is essential for investors — and everyone else.

The article Are You Prepared for the Future of Investing? originally appeared on Fool.com.

Alyce Lomax has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Apple and Tesla Motors. The Motley Fool owns shares of Apple and Tesla Motors.

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