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"Energy price shocks may boost fossil fuels in the short term, but they tend to accelerate the shift towards cleaner energy and the infrastructure that supports it...."

… contains …

• The return data is unambiguous
• Why energy crises undermine fossil fuel demand
• The geopolitical multiplier
• The cost advantage that does not reverse
• A transition accelerated, not delayed

Abstract

Ownership of public companies spans geography - institutional investors and investee companies are often located in different cities, states, and countries-with governance conducted by proxy, including for votes on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues raised by shareholders.

A frequent assumption by researchers and advocacy groups is that all ESG proposals should be supported, but this stakeholder orientation can be at odds with the framework used by investors.

Despite its many theoretical and empirical shortcomings, modern portfolio theory (MPT) remains the foundational framework as it both informs the structure of the investment industry (asset owners, active managers, passive managers) and the benchmarks against which investors' risk-adjusted performance is measured.

The research presented here is amongst the first to extend the MPT framework to proxy voting on ESG issues.

• The Bayesian modelling shows that asset owners support shareholder ESG proposals ~70% of the time.
• Support by active managers is size-dependent but even for large managers doesn't exceed ~45%.
• The largest passive managers exhibit much lower levels of support.

The results are broadly consistent with the characteristics and incentives implied by MPT and support development of a Modern Proxy Theory that offers a theoretical and empirical framework for further investigation, including the financial materiality of ESG issues and the geography of proxy voting.

Robertson, Ian, Sustainability by Proxy: Support for Shareholder ESG Proposals by Investor Type (April 20, 2026). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=6537042 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.6537042

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