Robert Wilder: The Eco-Financier and Pioneer of Green Investing

Meet Robert Wilder, a 62-year-old individual who wears many hats – author, lecturer, organic gardener, and a self-proclaimed tree hugger. While some might label him a hippie, Wilder's true identity lies as an ecologist and financier, possessing a keen eye for transforming environmentalism into a profitable venture.

Wilder is the brains behind the stock index that governs the portfolio of Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy, an exchange-traded fund valued at $930 million, investing in 82 companies that bet on a shift away from carbon-based energy. These companies are involved in the production of items like electric vehicle charging stations, windmill blades, and components for renewable energy grids. Many of these companies are often considered "speculative," with a significant number operating in the red. For instance, the viability of Energy Vault's concept of economically storing energy by lifting colossal blocks is met with skepticism.

Investing in Wilder's fund has proven to be quite a rollercoaster ride. In 2020, the fund surged by an astonishing 206%, only to lose half of its investors' money since then. As it stands, the companies in the fund's portfolio are, if not absolute bargains, at least trading at discounted prices. Their prospects are likely to brighten if some of the $394 billion recently approved by Congress for carbon reduction finds its way into their projects.

In the 1990s, Wilder was a Ph.D. lecturer specializing in environmental science at state universities in Massachusetts and California. However, he found the academic world lacked the excitement he craved. According to Wilder, "Being a professor is the second-best thing to do. The best thing is to be an entrepreneur."

Wilder made a bold move, leaving behind his academic career and depleting his retirement savings. He went from one fund operator to another in Boston and New York, pitching his vision for a green-energy fund. "They laughed at me," he recalls. At one point, he was sustaining himself with unemployment benefits.

Finally, an ETF vendor, now part of Invesco, took a chance on his idea. The arrangement was simple: Wilder would select the companies for a green energy index, and the fund company would create a fund based on this index, handling all the accounting and Wall Street connections. (The "Hill" in WilderHill Clean Energy refers to an early participant who has since withdrawn; Wilder owns WilderShares LLC entirely.)

WilderHill Clean Energy got off to a promising start when it opened its doors in 2005. Yet, the stock market crash of 2007-2009 proved disastrous. However, the fervor for climate-related investing in 2020 propelled it back to success.

Wilder proudly states that his decarbonization fund was among the first of its kind. However, it now faces substantial competition, including an ETF from First Trust, which is twice the size of Wilder's fund and has delivered returns that surpass those of WilderHill Clean Energy. What sets Wilder's fund apart is its practice of rebalancing the portfolio every quarter, ensuring that the selected companies receive almost equal weighting, regardless of their size or revenue. For example, a small player like Enovix, with $5 million in revenue and working on battery anodes, gets the same allocation as Albemarle, a lithium producer generating $5.6 billion in revenue."

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