Experts from Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis Investment Managers focused on sustainable investing, share their insights on the equity investment landscape for 2026.

At a London media event last week, attended by WealthBriefing, Karen Kharmandarian, head of thematic equities at Paris-headquartered Mirova said that 2025 had been a good year for tech, and he expects this trend to continue in 2026.  

“We now operate in an environment where themes are no longer secondary sector trends but the true pillars structuring the economy,” Kharmandarian said. “Artificial intelligence and robotics are experiencing spectacular growth, fuelled by massive investments in semiconductors, computing infrastructure and automation software.”

He said that technological acceleration is creating new opportunities in industrial and medical robotics and specialised AI software and cybersecurity. Power demand for AI is also strong, creating investment opportunities. But Kharmandarian drew attention to risks involved, looking at the extent to which AI can go ahead sustainably and to what extent energy consumption by these firms can be a limiting factor to their growth. “Datacentres are so energy hungry. This is a question mark going forward and the extent to which they can continue on this growth path,” he said at the event.

Data centres, for instance, require access to power and water, consuming the equivalent amount of water used by about 100,000 homes. In 2023, energy use by the US data centre reached as much as 4.4 per cent of total US electricity consumption. This growth, which is expected to increase, will create opportunities for infrastructure in power, notably renewable energy, and water, with the most opportunities seen in power.

“A data centre costs around £40 [$54.66 billion] to £50 billion, and needs access to land, energy and water. They are being developed in Ireland and Germany, in particular. TSMC, for instance, is building a new plant in Germany,” Kharmandarian said. He also mentioned that every day Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) plant consumes 28 million litres of water to produce chips for Nvidia.

Hervé Guez, global head of listed assets at Mirova, emphasised how AI, the energy transition and geopolitical fragmentation will shape the world to come. “These forces, which will guide capital flows for years ahead, require sharper analytical capabilities and an investment platform able to capture their industrial, social and environmental implications,” Guez said. “Mirova and Thematics AM are building a thematic platform that is better equipped to seize long-term opportunities while integrating environmental and social considerations at the heart of investment decision-making.”

(Mirova bolstered its thematic platform by absorbing Thematics Asset Managementand Thematics in May 2025.)

Sustainability
“Sustainability is a prerequisite for economic resilience,” Louise Schreiber, co-head of sustainability research – listed assets at Mirova, continued. “We select firms based on their sustainable practices and help them to navigate the new risks. It’s important to align AI to a sustainable future.”

“In a fragmented technologically-accelerated and environmentally-constrained world, sustainability is not a nice to have: it is a condition for economic resilience,” she said. “This is the role of shareholder engagement: shedding light on these shifts, managing emerging risks and supporting companies so that their transition pathways are credible, coherent and genuinely conducive to sustainable performance.”

Defence
After Germany and the EU hiked defence spending, the relation between defence stocks and ESG-focused portfolios and how they can sit together has also become a discussion point. Defence is critical and Kharmandarian said it is an area that they are investigating. But with Mirova only having funds covered by Article 9 under the EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), they do not yet hold defence stocks in their portfolios. “However, there are many other ways to support this theme indirectly, such as critical cybersecurity,” Schreiber added. See more about defence and ESG investing here.

Although sustainability has been pushed down the agenda, Guez said that the firms they invest in will be resilient and need to embrace long-term sustainability risks.