Sustainable Finance Is Growing in the World's Worst-Polluting Country
Being an impact investor in China isn’t as lonely as it used to be.
Smoke billows from smokestacks and a coal fired generator at a steel factory in the industrial province of Hebei, China.
Photographer: Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Tao Zhang is bullish on sustainability in China—especially when it comes to livestock emissions. The founder of U.S.-China impact investing consortium Dao Ventures has spent much of the past year looking to accelerate investment in more environmentally friendly plant-based or lab-grown meat for Chinese consumers through a new company, Dao Foods.
Climate change activists are worried that China’s increasing appetite for meat is further straining natural resources and causing methane emissions to soar. Yet Zhang and a new crop of impact investors believe that this, and China’s many other environmental and social concerns, can be solved with capital.