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Environmental, social and governance issues moved to centre stage in 2014, and they will be even more central to investment strategies in 2015, says research group MSCI.

Investors showed a growing appetite to address longer term risks and opportunities, “whether it is shifting regulations targeting the ‘tax gap’, a new market benchmark to define green bonds, or the adoption of low carbon investment solutions,” says Linda Eling-Lee, global head of ESG research.

There will be no shortage of such risks and opportunities this year, as investors look forward to 2015 against a backdrop of plummeting oil prices, renewed geopolitical faultlines and preparations for global climate talks that should seal a deal for all countries to limit their emissions of greenhouse gases.

MSCI has identified five major themes for investors to consider in the year ahead. The first is Aligning to the Fuels of the Future.

As the momentum builds towards the UN climate conference in Paris at the end of the year, investors will continue to reduce their carbon exposure, Ms Eling-Lee says. But they will also look to invest in lower carbon alternatives. “In 2015, we foresee that widespread adoption of de‐carbonization tools will be followed by interest in aligning portfolio exposure to our future energy technology.”

Investors are scrutinising their carbon-related risks much more than in the past, partly because of concerns that fossil fuel assets are mispriced and partly as a result of growing calls for divestment. But it is also because the tools available to investors have multiplied in recent years, from measuring the carbon exposure of their portfolios to building weighted portfolios that reduce the carbon-related risks of their investments.

With the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix increasing rapidly and reaching cost- parity with fossil fuel generation in markets ranging from the US to India and Brazil, “few question that the long term, global energy picture – and our fundamental energy infrastructure – will shift from its current energy mix,” MSCI says in its 2015 ESG Trends to Watch report. “As institutional investors shift their portfolios away from carbon‐intensive assets, the natural follow up question will be: to what extent can we shift investments to align with the energy technologies of the future? “ the report says.

“Without deliberately tilting more aggressively toward the companies with large and growing renewable capacity, investors potentially risk being under‐exposed to significant growth in future fuel technology,” Eling-Lee says.