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Climate protestors

12 Dec 2025

Bridging political fault-lines

The US has become the centre of a global sustainability fault line, locked in political polarisation, regulatory rollbacks, and an anti-ESG backlash. These tensions are reshaping climate policy, capital flows, and global markets. In the latest episode of 'What Next?' we explore how companies are responding on the ground, what this means for global action, and how leaders can navigate the fragmented landscape.

Key takeaways

  • Despite the political backlash, most companies continue advancing sustainability quietly because the underlying economic and risk drivers remain strong.
  • The real divide is not left versus right, but public rhetoric versus on-the-ground reality, where pragmatic climate action is still progressing.
  • Reframing sustainability through language around nature, resilience, stewardship and cost savings can rebuild common ground.
  • Leaders must clearly separate material value creation from virtue signalling to regain trust and reduce polarisation.
  • Adaptation and shared local impacts offer a unifying entry point that resonates across political and social divides.
Listen to the podcast

In this episode of podcast series, What Next? Gillian Tett and Prof. Bob Eccles explore how companies on the ground and how leaders can navigate an increasing polarised global geopolitical landscape, ESG backlash and how these tensions are reshaping climate policy, capital flows and markets. 

What Next? podcast series logo
What next? Leadership conversations for a better future

What next? Leadership conversations for a better future is a podcast series hosted by Marc Kahn, our Chief Strategy and Sustainability Officer, and Lindsay Hooper, CEO at the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). Along with critical thinkers, innovators and leaders from across the globe, they discuss how markets can truly serve people and the planet, asking tough questions, challenging old assumptions, and opening space for new perspectives and solutions.

Gillian Tett, FT journalist and Provost of King’s College Cambridge
Gillian Tett, Provost of King’s College Cambridge and acclaimed FT journalist

Many companies are simply carrying on as before; the rhetoric has changed more than the practice.

Dominic Vergine, Monumo CEO
Bob Eccles, Leading thinker on corporate reporting and political consensus-building

Most people aren’t extreme. They’re exhausted. The challenge is creating a narrative that speaks to the middle again.

Chapter notes | Scroll to the areas that interest you

  • Chapter 1 - Understanding the Pendulum: How We Arrived at Today’s Polarised Landscape (00:00–12:30)

    • The conversation opens by tracing the historical journey from decades of neoliberal economic thinking to the rise of ESG as a form of risk management.
    • Gillian explains how issues once seen as marginal—climate risk, supply chain exposure, social instability—became central to corporate strategy after the financial crisis, Trump era, and COVID-19.
    • Bob outlines how ESG became politicised from both the right and left, creating confusion and backlash. Both guests describe the loss of bipartisan consensus and how cultural narratives turned sustainability into a symbolic battleground rather than a pragmatic risk agenda.

  • Chapter 2 - The Political Realignment: ESG Backlash, Cultural Fractures & the New “Stakeholders” (12:30–23:30)

    • The episode explores why ESG became a lightning rod in the U.S., from identity politics to geopolitical competition.
    • Gillian notes the emergence of a “new stakeholderism” defined by energy security, national security, and domestic growth—rather than environmental or social outcomes.
    • The guests highlight contradictions: conservative states opposing ESG rhetorically while rapidly expanding renewables; younger Republicans demanding climate action; and political leaders intervening in corporate decisions at odds with free-market traditions.
    • This section frames the structural reality: sustainability has become inseparable from industrial strategy, identity, and national competitiveness.

  • Chapter 3 - What’s Happening on the Ground: The Reality of Corporate Adaptation (23:30–37:00)

    • Despite politics, companies continue acting—just more quietly. Gillian introduces “green-hushing”, where firms maintain climate and risk efforts but avoid public signalling.
    • Bob emphasises the need for companies to separate “value creation” (material risks to the business) from “virtue creation” (social aspirations), and calls for CFOs and CSOs to build shared narratives grounded in financial reality.

  • Chapter 4 - Pathways Forward: Language, Consensus-Building & the Leadership Mandate (37:00–end)

    • The episode closes with an exploration of what is needed to rebuild common ground and accelerate progress.
    • The guests argue for:
      • New, inclusive language (nature, stewardship, pollution—not jargon)
      • Shared narratives that cut across political identities (e.g., adaptation, energy security, local resilience)
      • Stronger engagement between business and policymakers to shape enabling environments (including carbon pricing)
      • Bridging the divide between financial and sustainability functions to create integrated strategies
      • Reframing business leadership as building communities, shared purpose, and long-term resilience
    • They stress that while politics is tribal, people are not—and that leaders can play a key role in reconnecting purpose, economic opportunity and collective action.

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Focus and its related content is for informational purposes only. The opinions featured on the site are not to be considered as the opinions of Investec and do not constitute financial or other advice. The information presented is subject to completion, revision, verification and amendment.

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