ESG investors shift focus to transitioning high-emissions industries, impact in 2023

ENVIRONMENTAL, social and governance (ESG) investment priorities in 2023 are shifting towards the transitioning of high-emissions industries and a focus on impact, fund managers and analysts told The Business Times.

Those themes are fuelled by inflation and a prolonged energy crisis, which increase the likelihood that the path towards a more sustainable world will be messy and more expensive, they said.

Decarbonisation acceleration

Perennial investor favourites solar and wind could give way to what Robeco sustainable investing specialist Laura Bosch Ferreté called the “four pillars of modern society” — steel, cement, fertiliser and plastics — as global attention turns towards the much harder task of decarbonising brown industries.