IJGlobal has today published an in-depth report on the tectonic shifts in the ESG space this year, particularly within the global infrastructure and energy markets.

Sponsored by BBVA, the report is featured in the winter edition of IJGlobal Magazine – which has been made open access and also exclusively reveals the winners of IJInvestor Awards 2020.

To download the pull-out ESG report, CLICK HERE…

Presenting views from some of the top experts in the field as well as proprietary data insights, IJGlobal’s ESG Report 2020 contains:

• interview with BBVA on how the bank’s ESG efforts have evolved over the years
• investigation into the EU taxonomy and related regulations making landfall in 2021
• closer look at ESG strategy with leading infrastructure investors
• energy efficiency – beyond just renewables, expanding the sector focus of sustainability
• data insights about the relentless rise of green bonds

ESG was already poised to have a record year in 2020 – but it’s been supercharged in the post-Covid world. From the hiring spree to onboard Heads of ESG, to the scramble to adopt stronger corporate ESG policies, to the serious pressure being exerted on fossil fuel producers, to the investor zeal for Tesla – ESG has become much, much more than a corporate buzzword.

Five years on from the Paris Agreement and the UN SDGs, as one investor puts it in our report: “I’d say 2020 bears no real comparison to 2019 or 2018.”

But that’s history and the bigger question is, what lies ahead?

For one, 2021 will see ESG make a serious jump from voluntary action to stricter regulatory requirements – most consequentially as a product of the EU’s Green Deal. And whereas the 2010s were the decade of renewables, then the 2020s will see sustainability expanded to other sectors such as transport, energy efficiency and manufacturing.

Inevitably, all of the attention to ESG will also lead to bubbles in certain corners of the market. As for other known unknowns, we have yet to see whether these actions will be enough to make a difference in climate change in the decades ahead!