What is the outlook for sustainability for the year ahead?
David Harrison, manager of the Rathbone Greenbank Global Sustainability fund, gives his one year view on sustainability theme and why there’s positives for the year head.
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We often speak about sustainability themes such as the energy transition, investment in water infrastructure and industrial digitisation. It’s important to remember that these are multi-year trends that are still at a relatively early stage. That gives us confidence for the next five and 10 years ahead and reinforces the importance of remaining a long-term investor in the space, that is our key focus, and we seek to own the highest quality companies exposed to these powerful trends.
On a one year view, I would highlight several positives for the sustainability space. Normalising inflation and interest rates should favour longer-duration assets where many of our companies sit.
The positive surprise at COP 28 were somewhat unexpected and highlights the need to invest in areas such as the energy transition. As I’ve highlighted, this should be beneficial to a number of our companies.
Finally, 2023 saw the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks vastly outperform, both in the US and globally. The market has given us some very attractive valuation opportunities in high-quality businesses outside these seven stocks, and our pipeline of potential investments has never been stronger.
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