Elysabeth Alfano, founder of Plant-Powered Consulting, and plant-based investor Sasha Goodman, have unveiled the first global index and list of publicly traded plant-based stocks, VegTech: The Global Vegan Impact and Innovation Index (VEGT).
The VegTech lndex of 21 global companies represents the publicly traded companies actively innovating to remove animals from the supply chain. Like the Dow Jones Industrial Average or Nasdaq-100, the VegTech Index tracks these companies and reports monthly on the average, market cap-weighted performance to give a snapshot of the growth, health and investment potential of this mission-driven sector.
To be included in VegTech, companies need to be working, intentionally or not, towards making animal-free advancements in their product offerings. This typically means they offer an alternative within an industry that uses a lot of animal products. Secondly, the company as a whole, and not just one of its brands, cannot be involved in producing animal meat, animal dairy, animal testing (unless subjected by law), farm animal feed products, or the significant displacement of wildlife.
The list of companies will continue to morph and grow as more plant-based companies go public. Along the same lines, if any company introduces any animal products into their product lines, it will be taken off the list.
“As an investor, I want a portfolio that is 100% free from animals. I also want to invest in the companies that are intentionally seeking to solve some of the world’s greatest problems by keeping animals out of their products. Thus, I started curating a list of companies on the global markets according to certain criteria for both myself and my Plantbased Business Hour listeners,” says Elysabeth in a press statement.
Sasha adds, “With this list, I hope to encourage public companies to lead the way and replace animal products with plant- or cell-based versions that are better for people, the planet and the animals.”
“Ultimately, consumers expect companies to start being part of the solution rather than part of the problem. The VegTech index lists and tracks companies that are doing just that,” Elysabeth comments.
VegTech is currently running in beta mode.
