Biden transition brings wave of ESG uncertainty, opportunity

New U.S. President Joe Biden has made climate change a priority and is setting the nation on a much more sustainability-focused path than his predecessor. Just days into his term, Biden had already has taken dozens of executive actions, including rejoining the Paris agreement on climate change and ordering a review of rules the Trump administration finalized in the last days of its term. In the latest episode of S&P Global podcast ESG Insider, we talk to experts about what the change of administration and the inherent regulatory uncertainty mean for sustainability-minded companies and investors. We hear from Josh Zinner, CEO of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. ICCR, a global coalition of institutional investors, engages with corporations on a wide range of ESG issues. Zinner said climate-minded investors take the long view and ignored the Trump administration's deregulatory agenda in the expectation that the pendulum would eventually swing back in their favor, which it now has under Biden. We talk to Alex Bond, one of the regulatory leads at the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for investor-owned electric utilities in the U.S. Bond said the sector has been focused on climate for years and that utilities, like investors, take a long-term view. And we interview former bank regulator John Geiringer, who said that the tone in the financial sector was already shifting to take climate risk more seriously, even before the administration change.   Photo source: Getty Images