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Since 2021, FT Longitude has been conducting a survey of senior professionals working for major institutional investors. The first three waves of the survey focused on investors in Asia, with respondents from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, and South Korea. Starting in 2023, the survey expanded to 14 countries with respondents from Europe, North America and Australia.
The respondents are senior professionals responsible for investment decisions across insurance, asset management, banks, endowments, hedge funds and pension funds. The purpose of the survey is to better understand how investors think about climate change and the energy sector, and to monitor how their opinions evolve over time by collecting longitudinal data.
The key findings for this wave were:
- In the wake of heightened geopolitical tension, Investors’ appetite for oil and gas has strengthened, particularly an increase in investors who rank oil as the top energy source for investment returns in the medium term.
- Short-term confidence in renewables has risen, with the percentage of investors ranking renewables top for returns in the short term rising from 9% in the last wave to 14% in this wave, but investors seem to be slightly less confident about the profitability of renewables compared with other energy sources in the long term.
- Regional divides are widening as Europe prioritises climate while others increase oil investments. European investors are also at least 10 percentage points more likely than investors in other regions to expect new climate regulations in the next years.
- Over half of investors say that their institution is unlikely to invest in south-east Asia’s power grid infrastructure unless countries in the region adopt stronger renewable energy targets and policies. Asian institutions are also becoming more aware of the risks of investing in high-emitting sectors, with an increase in those who say they consider the risk of being sued relating to their investments in these sectors.
- More than a year into the current US administration, ESG trends show little evidence of a dramatic shift. There has been a rise in the percentage of respondents who say their organisation generally votes in favour of shareholder resolutions that ask companies to disclose more information or take more action on climate change.
All of the data can be viewed and analyzed using the CORE data explorer.