The Energy Sector Won A Significant Battle, But Not The Final War‍

Trump’s victory was undoubtedly a significant overall win for the energy industry. However, the industry must be more mindful that the administration still faces a substantial uphill battle and cannot allow an irrational over-exuberance to emerge and convince the broader sector that sustainability no longer matters. Utilizing the current short-term political landscape to justify discontinuing material sustainability-related directives is a dangerous and short-sighted road that will only lead to more significant problems in the future.

While the industry should certainly be more optimistic about its future than four years ago, we must also remain cautious not to allow that optimism to encourage us to make foolish and short-sighted decisions. Regulatory reform, material sustainability considerations and the ghosts that once haunted the legacy ESG landscape should not be conflated. A significant proportion of the “noise” that once plagued the legacy ESG landscape has thankfully been filtered out of the picture. However, material sustainability-related considerations that impact long-term valuation and commercial relationships still matter, and the demand for its corresponding data points has not waned. If anything, the market has been conditioned to have access to them, so immediately halting such practices seems unfounded and foolish.

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