When it comes to sustainability, the biggest opportunity for the next decade or more will be energy.

Recent news stories have talked about how the projection for “peak oil” – when we’ll begin to transition to other fuels and replace oil – has been pushed back once again.

Part of that reality is because we’re using more energy than ever, as the population continues to climb and more countries are developing more modern societies.

As you can see below, that hardly makes a dent in the renewable energy growth.

Source: Nova 1 Advisor

It’s important to understand that new tech, like artificial intelligence (AI), is going to require massive amounts of electricity. For example, server farms now consume 26% of the energy produced in Virginia.

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) recently announced that it’s come to an agreement with Constellation Energy (NYSE: CEG) to power up a mothballed reactor at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania to power its server farms moving forward.

Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG), Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN), and Meta (NASDAQ: META) have been spending billions on renewable energy resources to power their server farms as well… and this trend isn’t slowing. It’s accelerating.

Going Green Is Getting Greener

Agriculture is another sector where sustainability is going to have a massive impact.

Here, it’s more about new technology that can help farmers know when to plant, when to water, where to target pesticides, and how to harvest to get the best yields.

Farmers have no interest in spending more than they absolutely need to, since most of their costs – seeds, fertilizer, fuel – are front-loaded and they have to wait for harvest to get repaid.

Drones have become a big part of farming as well, especially for large farms where you can’t see what’s happening hundreds of acres away.

Deere (NYSE: DE) and Caterpillar (NYSE: CAT) are working very hard to modernize new products, as well as figure out how to retrofit their older equipment to integrate the best of cutting-edge technology.

Eventually, the changes will affect every product from the factory farm all the way down to the average person mowing their lawn.

A New Way to Build

As investors are very aware, infrastructure is absolutely essential to strong economies.

Upgrading infrastructure, particularly in a huge country like the US, is expensive. That means it’s hard to find the money and the time to get it done because most politicians don’t get what business owners know: If you don’t have a solid, modern infrastructure, you’re going to get left behind.

What’s more, by upgrading buildings – smarter materials, smarter HVAC, smarter designs – you are also looking at how to incorporate sustainable energy resources for them as well.

The same holds true for roads, bridges, rail, airports, etc.

CAT will be a big player here, as will companies like United Rentals (NYSE: URI), since they’re the core of the Old Economy when it comes to the equipment that gets these jobs done.