2025: A Year of Living Dangerously for Sustainability Investing

1st Topic of the Week: It will be an interesting year for ESG and Sustainability focused investors as they face strong but ebbing support in Europe and increasing hostility in the US – multinational companies will need to tread a fine line to keep everyone happy. Those committing capital to clean energy projects need to be sure that they have supportive shareholders in the US.
2nd Topic of the Week: While the corn ethanol market has begun 2025 with weakness, longer-term plans see many in renewable materials and fuels viewing corn and other crops as their salvation – good for farmers, less good for food prices, and unclear how the balance will work.
Otherwise – We note another recycling bankruptcy, we look at carbon credit pooling in Europe and the growing interest in ammonia as a fuel as well as a hydrogen carrier. Next week we will combine our sustainability and hydrogen report on Thursday in part because of the holiday but also to study the first couple of days of MAGA.

Exhibit 1: ESG fund flows were slightly better in 3Q 2024 than 2Q 2024, but the momentum is way off its highs