Investment & Job Opportunities and Scams Related with Green / Renewable Energy Projects!

Human induced activities such as burning fossil fuels like coal, oil etc. which generate harmful greenhouse gases, has been a key driver behind unprecedented levels of climate changes especially over the last century. Yet, at the same time burning of fossil fuels in such large quantities had been necessitated by the increasing demands of human development.

This gives rise to the concept of sustainable development and many governments around the world have encouraged the options of green or renewable energy sources, which would mean the impact on the environment would be comparatively lesser.

As a result, Green / Sustainable Energy has created a new, emerging market globally and has been creating new job and investment opportunities.

According to the report released in 2021 named as Renewable Energy and Jobs: Annual Review 2021, the International Labor Organization (ILO), in 2020 there were 12 million renewable energy related jobs worldwide, which was a 0.5 million increment from 2019. From those renewable energy jobs in 2020, 4 million jobs were solar energy based and 1.25 million jobs were wind energy related.

The Director General of International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Francesco La Camera  says that renewable energy`s ability to create jobs and meet climate goals is beyond doubt and because of it country leaders should try to reach net zero target.  Furthermore, the director general of ILO, Guy Ryder also says renewable energy has the potential to create many new jobs.

IRENA and ILO findings show that while there are some job losses in the transition phase to the renewable energy sector, in the longer run, there is a certain capability of creating new job opportunities as compared to job losses. More details about this can be read from here. Archived.

The findings of a research released by a reputed academic and research institution, Imperial college, London in collaboration with International Energy Agency (IEA) in 2020, revealed that investing in renewable energy gains significantly higher profit margin, as compared to traditional fuel-based industries.

Their study concerned with a number of developed nations shows the following data. When it comes to Germany and France, the five-year long investment plan of fossil fuel-based industries gives -20.7% loss, while the same investment plan in new energy-based industries gives 178% profit. In the United Kingdom, green energy generates 75% profit while fossil fuel generates only 8% profit in a five-year investment plan. In the USA, green energy generates 200% profit while fossil fuel related investments only generate 97% profit.

There has been some misconception in society which tries to convince the public that investing in fossil fuel gives more profits than investing on new energy. However, it`s misleading according to the above-mentioned findings. Details about the above research can be taken from here. Archived

With the boom in Renewable / Green Energy projects, there has been an increase in the number of scams related to these industries as well. As reported here, these scams have been targeting both rich and poor alike, from potential investors to socially conscious consumers. Citizens Advice had reported that more than 19 million adults have been targeted by a green scam in 2020.

The scammers have been using online/web spaces to mislead public by using more socially conscious, headline grabbing methods. Scammers have been mainly talking about electronic cars, solar energy, wind power plants etc. in this regard.

We recently came across one such potential scam. We followed few steps to measure the reliability or genuine nature of this website and readers can also follow those steps to check the reliability of suspicious websites.

The concerned website, newener9y.com is inviting the investors to invest in new energy and it says below statement on their homepage.

Oil is killing people

New energy saves the earth

Join NEO, get new energy subsidies, and promote new energy to gain benefits

The most profitable business in the next 10 years, you will become a millionaire

Archived

Using various tools, we tried to get more insight into the validity of this website. We used a famous scam advisory website, scam advisor score as one such indicator. Here, 100 marks to reliable websites and 0 or lower end marks represents unreliable websites. The concerned newener9y.com website took 27 points, indicating high likelihood of a scam site, as seen here. Archived. The scam advisor report related with that newener9y.com says that the identity of the site is hidden, traffic rank is rather low, and the website was setup recently with the registrar of this website being popular amongst scammers.

We also checked the reliability of the web from Scamdoc. According to their analysis, the website has a very bad trust index. They state two main reasons for that. One is that the domain name is very recent and one that has a short life expectancy. The report of Scamdoc over the suspected website can be read from here. Archived.

We checked about this website details from WhoIs Domain Lookup also, which indicated that the website was registered on 1^st of August 2022. So, it`s clear that this is a newly created domain. The WhoIs report can be reached from here. Archived

Furthermore, we did not notice any details about the personnel behind this scheme listed on the website, nor did we find any links to social media handles. We also noticed the same set of names were popping at the top of the web page, claiming to be people who had received payments from this scheme which was promoted as a referral program for earning money.

We request netizens to show extreme caution in approaching these websites and to refrain from providing your personal data onto such schemes which have no credible information about the program.

Some of the key advice, one should be concerned with, before investing in new energy projects and to avoid being a victim of these scams are listed below.

Ø Check all the filings related with the authenticity of the project and company before investing in any particular company.

Ø Meet legal and technical experts and get their advice before investing money in any such projects.

Ø Always remember the facts that attractive websites and online presentations/videos can easily deceive the investors and grab the money.

Many details about this can be taken from here. Archive