I first heard the term “stranded assets” at a Bloomberg event in New York City during Climate Week 2014. For me, the term conjured up images of homeowners and their dogs waiting atop roofs to be rescued during Hurricane Katrina. Yet that didn’t seem right for the context of the discussion, and a quick Google search set me straight: They were talking about coal-fired power plants that would be worth nada on Wall Street should a carbon tax change the market. (That was almost two years before Peabody Coal went bankrupt.)
Two years later at Climate Week NYC 2016’s Sustainable Investment Forum, stranded assets still seems to mean the same thing to investors – coal – and they mull it increasingly. The industry understands the term as holdings that need to be written down before the end of their expected life span.
But BlackRock is an early leader in unveiling it's future meaning. Read more here at my oped published in Triple Pundit:
http://www.triplepundit.com/2016/10/stranded-assets-preventing-next-era-climate-change/