By Anders Lorenzen

Riding on the positive wave of COP26 and the increased attention the climate and nature crisis continues to receive, the amount of capital put towards sustainable investments continues also to increase. 

For instance, the UK based environmental, social and governance equity funds (ESG)  which in recent years have grown in prominence have seen a record 1.5billion of investments. 

ESG equity funds saw the record investments in November as the COP26 climate talks had spurred investor interest in sustainability – this is according to funds network Calastone.

Responding to the positive announcements during COP26

As world leaders, policymakers and negotiators in Glasgow agreed on a series of climate-positive deals, such as phasing down coal and deforestation, and a coalition also emerged aiming to confine the oil industry to history, investors responded positively.

Edward Glyn, head of global markets at Calastone said: “ESG continues to capture investor imagination. When investors have cash to add, they add it to ESG, and any impulse to sell is felt by other categories.”

Calastone explained it is the largest global funds network, processing 200 billion pounds of investment value each month.

While a series of environmental and social issues encompasses the framework of ESG it is believed that concerns about the climate crisis are at the heart of the growing interest in ESG investments amongst fund managers.

In addition, dominated by clean energy stocks, the share prices of stocks related to any kind of sustainability have increased in recent years. And as more pressures are heaped upon financial institutions to act on the climate crisis, this trend is only likely to be strengthened.