Tom Eckett takes a closer look at whether President-Elect Trump's bark may be worse than his bite in terms of his impact on responsible investing sectors.
"The US will not take the leading role it has had under the Obama administration but momentum and economics and diversity of drivers of play are such that I do not see it coming to an end [under Trump]."
Meanwhile, although Trump is unlikely to help advance responsible investing during his tenure, AXA IM's Christensen said in a the long-term scenario he sees a "worldwide trend of regulatory constraint that is favouring this area".
According to some managers, the key reason Trump will be unable to impact SRI sectors significantly is purely down to economics; already the cost of renewable energy is falling and this is a fact the President-Elect cannot change.
Pictet's Borremans said: "Overall, his election is not good news from a policy point of view. However, this is only likely to change the politics and not the economics.
"The election will not change the statistics. We are likely to see an acceleration in cleaner alternatives in transportation through electric cars, for example. It is simply a question of competitiveness.
'A recipe for economic uncertainty': The market implications of a Trump presidency
"It may slow down the development of renewables in the US but if projects like the Keystone Pipeline [an oil pipeline system running from America to Canada that Trump is backing] do not make economic sense, companies will not invest billions into them."
More importantly, the issue of climate change is not going to go away under President Trump, said Lisa Beauvilain, head of sustainability and ESG at Impax AM. "Even though momentum will be slower in the US following the election result, it does not change the situation in the long term."
Pharma boost
In addition, while clean energy and climate change actions are both areas that could slow under Trump's presidency, AXA IM's Christensen believes there are a number of sectors that from a responsible investing perspective are likely to be boosted by his government, such as the pharmaceuticals sector.
In the run-up to the election, Hillary Clinton's threat to drug pricing was a key contributor to the sector selling-off, although it has bounced back on Trump's success.
"Clinton talked about pricing and regulation of the sector, but Trump has not. [Some] pharmaceutical companies might actually benefit by some of the work Trump might do in that sector," Christensen added.
