The Principles for Responsible Investment has marked its 20th anniversary with a series of ceremonies across the world’s largest stock exchanges, underscoring the mainstream acknowledgement responsible investment has gained over the past two decade even though the movement remains in a difficult phase with persistent political headwinds.  

After holding gatherings with local signatories in Mumbai, São Paulo, Johannesburg, Tokyo and Paris, the United Nations-backed responsible investment network rang the ASX bell in Sydney’s Martin Place in front of a packed room of super funds, asset managers and company board directors on Thursday.  

The organisation’s foundation is richly connected to Australia despite being a global organisation, with three of its leaders to date being Australians, including founder James Gifford. During an internship with the UN in 2006, and while completing a PhD at the University of Sydney, Gifford pitched the idea of building a global network of investors and encouraging them to sign up to a set of ESG principles that would push companies to improve.  

Today, the organisation has more than 5000 signatories managing more than US$135.6 trillion in assets. There are 40 asset owner signatories in the Oceanic region, including the Future Fund and most of the largest super funds.  

But outgoing PRI chief executive David Atkin, who is wrapping up his tenure after the Sydney event, said the organisation’s “work is not done”. 

“We need to redouble our efforts to properly address the sustainability risks facing the world today, integrate those into our investment decision making and ultimately ensure long-term value creation for members we serve,” he said.  

The comment comes as many global responsible investment groups face an existential crisis stemming from the US’ hostile stance towards ESG. Following the departure of a number  of its largest signatories, including mega manager BlackRock, the global network of Net Zero Asset Managers went into hiatus for a year to review if its activities are still “fit for purpose”. 

In February 2026, the network regrouped with arguably less rigorous commitments. Its updated rules removed some requirements including for its signatories to have interim net zero targets by 2030, and to measure scope 1, 2 and material scope 3 emissions.

PRI itself has also slashed reporting burdens to preserve code relevance among signatories. In an interview last year with Investment Magazine sister publication Top1000funds.com, Atkin said the PRI will simplify the reporting framework for its signatories to consist of just 40 questions, down from the current 240, recognising that it has presented too much administrative burden for investors.  

The Trump government’s crusade against responsible investments is showing little signs of slowing down in 2026.  In its annual report on economic progress in the US, the Council of Economic Advisers  slammed environmentally focused ESG investments for having cost the US economy US$98 billion to US$196 billion from 2016 to 2023.  

The report estimated that ESG investments constitute around 20 per cent of the “capital misallocation” in the US, which occurs when “capital flows toward lower-cost rather than higher-productivity uses”. 

Speeches at the Sydney event notably did not directly address any pressure ESG is facing in the US, though in Australia, Minister for Financial Services Daniel Mulino said the Albanese government wants to provide responsible investors with policy certainties.  

“This government is very committed to Australia as an economy and as a government being committed to a net zero transition by 2050 so again – without wanting to get too much into the day-to-day politics – there are a number of undercurrents undermining that,” he told the PRI event. 

“I feel like it’s actually not going to be good for our economy and not going to be good for policy if we revert too much back to as a country debating whether climate change is happening or whether we need to respond to it.” 

The Albanese government wants to back super funds’ ability to invest more in responsible assets, and that Mulino sees changes to the Your Future, Your Super test as a potential venue to do so.  

Treasury released a discussion paper on potential changes to the performance test this month, but Mulino declined to give a concrete timeline for any regulatory follow-ups. 

“We want to move on this as quickly as possible, but it’s also fair to say that there is a lot of regulatory work going on in our treasury portfolio generally, and that this is one of the particularly technical [works],” he said. 

“It’s always been acknowledged that private finance is going to play a critical role, and so I think this comes down to a combination of things. The initiatives of PRI are critical because I think a broader frame of analysis by investors helps to get them involved in a deep way in that transition. 

“Yet government needs to think about regulatory environment in which we facilitate that private investment, which is going to be absolutely critical in the transition.”