Why lockdown has given the planet an opportunity to recover

Those that cheered the loudest were the environmentalists, and surprisingly there was also a cheerful reaction from the stock market, with environmentally sustainable funds outperforming traditional funds.

But this was not all down to the pandemic; this overperforming momentum has built up over the previous decade and is only now being brought to the forefront of most investors’ and stakeholders’ attention.

Covid-19 has made the consumer more aware and allowed all of us to use and rely on technology more willingly.

In the past four months, we have seen a lot of changes occur with remote working almost certainly taking on more of a lead as time marches on, which in turn will bring with it less congestion on our roads, more public transport capacity for those who need to travel, and cleaner air for all of us.

These types of changes are significant and with them bring other positive changes. The combination of change and data is showing where the smart money is heading into, environmental and ethical investing. The questions are how quickly investors will become alive to this trend, as consumers are taking more of an interest in the fine print of organisations and how they operate.

One example to look at is home working. Having been forced to work from home for months and now undergoing a slow release back to the office, many companies are reconsidering their office spaces and their requirements.

But in terms of the environment, what the overnight move to home working did was speed up the positive changes in our energy system. Heating and lighting individual homes is more demanding on the grid than sharing office spaces. So how can we do this better?

What we are finding is an accelerated shift to a more responsive energy network that can adapt to fluctuating supply and demand, encourage small-scale renewables on to the grid and support the creation of innovative new services that transform how consumers store and use energy.

Companies are fast-forwarding their thinking to not only meet the needs and the demands for now but for the long term. A trend was noticed in the data which “found that three-quarters of sustainable funds lasted 10 years or more, compared with less than half of traditional funds”.

Did the environmentally aware investors see something in the future that we all missed? Or did they simply consider an approach of valuing people and planet as well as profit, making them much more resilient to future crises than those who focus purely on securing the lowest cost supply.

Employees are using their voice to bring about change to their companies and are likely to get the support of the consumer which will be followed by investors.

This was on display recently when hundreds of Facebook employees, in rare but very public criticism of their employer, protested against the executives’ decision not to do anything about inflammatory posts that President Trump had placed on the social media platform.

Harvard Business Review also carried out research and concluded “environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) is just outdated”.

All too much change? Not really. You just have to pivot your thinking and consider how environmental and ethical investors 
will help change the future for your business now.