“It looks pretty challenging,” says Benjie Elston, when asked about the state of sustainability in America. And he would know.
In 2022, Benjie’s job title was President - North America, Head of Sustainability at the company now known as Alpha Agency (he has since become a partner at Alpha FMC, our parent company).
Benjie moved from the UK to Boston when ESG was arguably still at its peak. It’s something of an understatement to say things have shifted somewhat since then.
“Maybe the first 12 months there was still quite a lot of interest. I was invited to speak at events on the topic of ESG and sustainability. I would host sessions, and we would talk about culture and stewardship. You would get loads of people attending and lots of questions.
“Then it just went to zero,” he adds.
Political polarisation
When asked if it would be fair to attribute to industry-wide reset in the US to the election of Donald Trump, Benjie says “to a large degree”.
“You had some emerging political polarisation before that; there were definitely challenges and there was a lot of noise"
In August 2022, a Texas comptroller (effectively, the state’s CFO) produced a blacklist of 10 financial services companies. They were “prohibited from entering into contracts with the state or any state agencies because they are considered to be boycotting the oil and gas industry”[1].
The comptroller wrote: “The ESG movement has produced an opaque and perverse system in which some financial companies no longer make decisions in the best interest of their shareholders or their clients, but instead use their financial clout to push a social and political agenda shrouded in secrecy. Our review focused on the boycott of energy companies, rather than a review of the entire ESG movement[2].
Included on the list was BlackRock, which was removed in June 2025[3]. The nine other asset managers on the 2022 list were all European[4].
In January 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Trustees of the State Board of Administration ‘formally approved measures to protect Florida’s investments from woke ESG, ensuring that all investment decisions focus solely on maximising the highest rate of return’[5].
Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 saw the challenging environment quickly spread beyond the staunchly red states.
Minimising the mythology
It’s fair to say that some firms might actually be relieved by the shift, as they were never ‘true believers’ in the first place.
“The US is a hyper competitive market,” Benjie says. “Everyone is aware of margin erosion; everyone is focused on automation, tech, privates and ETFs. With sustainability no longer front and centre; firms can focus on targeting the wealth market or rebuilding their technology platforms.”
How this will all play out is truly anyone’s guess, but Benjie believes the asset management industry can and will adapt.
“I think we will see firms continue to strip out explicit references to ESG and sustainability. They will favour language such as ‘resilience’ and ‘resilient’ and try to find other words that are less triggering.”
But, in some ways, Benjie views this difficult period as a positive. “We were almost getting into a mythical world; the message was that the sustainability route would not compromise return potential. Recent events have proved that is not the case.
“If you want investments married to a particular outcome, there are compromises to be made. Your expectations need to be moderated. I think we are in a new world now.”
What lies ahead may be a world where the beating heart of sustainable investment lies in the boutique space, while larger and super-sized asset managers offer investors some ESG strategies, but steer clear of evangelism on the subject.
This would mean less investment in companies and technologies that could meaningfully limit climate change. However, some money being put to good use is better than none.