Outlook 2025
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Outlook 2026
Beyond the “vibes”: Focusing on resilience to navigate long-term goals vs. near-term upheaval.
Investors can forgiven if they find the events of 2025 and early 2026 to be outside the range of even their most broad-rang- ing scenario analyses: In many ways, the hallmark of the World that we all find ourselves in now is its utter lack of predict- ability. Political upheaval, war and uncertainty about the very foundations of policy frameworks and the so-called rules- based international order make it exceedingly demanding for both companies and investors to predict and plan for specific pathways. In the face of such uncertainty, economic actors face a stark choice: Either they can fall back to purely tactical decision-making, reacting to short-term, headline signals – “vibes” – as if there were no longer such a thing as the long term. Or, they can revert to first principles, keep their eyes on their stated values and convictions and pragmatically build the resilience that will allow them to outlast their competitors. We at Nordea Asset Management believe that the latter strategy is the winning one, and we are seeing the best companies and investors adopting it.
The current environment is not one where crises can be ad- dressed one by one. Rather, we are facing emergencies be- ing triggered on an ongoing basis, one heaped upon the other without any being truly resolved. In such a polycrisis World, looking beyond the so-called vibes is important. For example, relying only on media headlines, one could get the impression that the energy transition has fully stalled in the US, that the EU has given up on its sustainability ambitions and that both EV’s and sustainable finance are on their last legs. It is not that such headlines are completely pulled out of the thin air – both political wavering, resistance and “backlash” are real, and we are very far from the Glasgow COP days of widespread con- sensus (at least rethorically) on the need to act on climate change. Indeed, many aspects of sustainability have become culture war issues, as political actors position themselves as defenders of so-called common sense, against what they
frame as excessive focus on both on social issues like diversity and on the “Climate Agenda”.
What these actors miss is that a lot has happened – technolog- ically and in terms of the economics – since the Glasgow COP of 2021. Perhaps most importantly, solar and wind, coupled with the rise of battery energy storage systems (or BESS) have become the cheapest – and by far the fastest – way to increase electricity generating capacity, while also insulating user from volatility in fossil fuel prices. This has led to upside-down situ- ations such as that of the CEO of the major US Utility NextEra, under political pressure to increase the company’s use of fossil gas, stating to a Politico conference audience 36 that “We need [renewables as] a bridge to 2032 when that gas shows up, and when that gas shows up it’s going to be three times as expen- sive as it’s ever been”. Another anecdote reflective of this trend
36) https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/nextera-ceo-says-renewables-needed-bridge-expanding-gas-power-2025-06-10/.
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