The Infrastructure Investor Podcast

Forging ahead with sustainability against political headwinds

2025-10-13 · 07:00 UTC ·PEI Group ·1 min read

Brief

Infrastructure sustainability remained the focus even as political resistance to ESG intensified, especially in the US. Della Wang and Neil Krawitz largely agreed that managers may be reframing ESG terminology, but many still see sustainability as intrinsic to infrastructure investing. Their discussion centered on adaptation: physical assets must be managed for increasingly frequent extreme weather rather than treated as a purely reputational or political issue.

Why it matters

Della Wang of Fengate Asset Management and Neil Krawitz of Arcus Infrastructure Partners said infrastructure managers are not broadly abandoning sustainability despite the 2025 anti-ESG backlash in the US; instead, some are mainly changing the language they use around ESG.

Key details

  • Both speakers argued that infrastructure investing requires a long-term view on sustainability because the asset class is exposed to physical climate risk over long durations.
  • Wang and Krawitz highlighted climate adaptation as an immediate priority for infrastructure managers, citing more frequent and severe weather events as a practical driver of asset management decisions.
Source evidence

title: Forging ahead with sustainability against political headwinds
author: PEI Group
contenttype: podcast
publication: The Infrastructure Investor Podcast
published: 2025-10-13T07:00:00+00:00
sourceurl: https://infrastructureinvestorpodcast.podbean.com/e/forging-ahead-with-sustainability-against-political-headwinds/

word_count: 144

This episode is sponsored by Fengate Asset Management and Arcus Infrastructure Partners As a backlash against ESG gathers strength, particularly in the United States, it might be reasonable to assume that infrastructure managers are quietly retreating from their sustainability commitments. While it is true that some managers are adjusting their language in how they talk about ESG and sustainability, we find that others are still eager to emphasise their importance to the asset class. In this episode, Della Wang, director for responsible investment at Fengate Asset Management, and Neil Krawitz, partner and head of ESG and asset management at Arcus Infrastructure Partners, discuss how managers need to take a long-term view when it comes to sustainability. They agree that a key focus now needs to be on adaptation, as climate change forces managers to confront the reality of more frequent and extreme weather events.