Norges Bank Investment Management has said that climate transition strategies are being mentioned less often in corporate earnings calls.

In its 2024 responsible investment report, the NBIM has said that earnings calls analysed using AI models shows the frequency that climate transition plans are mentioned has fallen to 20% in 2024 from a peak of around 30% in 2021.

NBIM’s chief governance and compliance officer Carine Smith Ihenacho said, “We are in the middle of an ESG backlash. It impacts the markets, it impacts companies, it impacts investors.
ESG is complicated, but for us it’s always been about financial materiality, it’s always been about long-term value creation. That’s the dialogue we have with the companies, that’s the dialogue we will continue to have.”

Global head of active ownership, Wilhelm Mohn, said, “You’re seeing maybe the investor rhetoric change a little bit globally to counter the anti-ESG pressures that are out there, but I think at the company level you’re seeing less of it. But we are definitely having a more nuanced discussion about what makes economic sense and what does not, so there is a clearer focus about the financial underpinnings of E and S, and that’s probably positive. In those data, we are not capturing any ESG backlash at the company level, so I think it’s a bit early to say.”

END