Donald Trump’s presidency may end up as the best thing to ever happen to environmentally and socially responsible investing.

Even after early moves from the White House to ease regulations on the coal industry, clear the way for two controversial pipelines and move to exit or reform the Paris Agreement on climate change; and despite President Trump and his EPA Administrator, Scott Pruit, being climate change skeptics, ESG fund managers are optimistic about their future.

“Advisors are now talking about this as a client need,” says Leo Zerilli, head of investments at John Hancock Investments, the wealth management arm of Boston-based John Hancock Financial Services. “We knew that women and millennials were interested in this space. There have always been some high-net-worth investors with social and environmental issues in mind. Now we’re seeing it discusses as a must-have for advisors.”

In fact, Trump’s anti-regulatory stances could drive new interest in environmental, social and governance investing, says Ben Webster, CEO of Santa Monica, Calif.-based OWLshares, an ESG-oriented ETF sponsor.

“Oftentimes, someone who is polarizing can incite or motivate people who disagree with them to fight all that much harder,” says Webster. “His administration could increase demand and urgency in the market.”

ESG investing selects companies based on their positive attributes towards environmental sustainabiltiy and stewardship, social responsibility and citizenship, and ethically sound corporate governance. And it's more popular now in the first months of the Trump administration than ever before. According to a survey published in November 2016 by US SIF, $8.7 trillion in assets resides with U.S. managers who consider issues of environmental sustainability, social responsibility and corporate governance. The same survey counted more than 1,000 ESG-oriented funds.

By comparison, the same survey found only 200 ESG funds in 2001.

Institutional investors such as CALPERS helped drive the initial push towards ESG-oriented investing, and along with a cohort of niche fund managers, were the original full-throated social activist investors. More recently, investor coalitions organized by non-profit organizations like As You Sow have joined the movement.

The government may find reasons to make fewer investments in initiatives supporting green energy and gender diversity, but that may give investors more reason to focus on wind and solar projects and companies that hire and promote women internally.

ESG investing is being driven by clients, not policy. ESG has moved from an investment philosophy coached in naïve ideals to one that addresses financial reality that companies that adopt policies addressing ESG issues tend to perform better over the long term.

“I think the growth that we’re seeing in the ESG space is happening independent of any political backdrop,” says Ingrid Dyott, portfolio manager for the $2.5 billion-AUM Neuberger Berman Socially Responsive Fund. “There’s interest that’s not going away.”

In the month following the 2016 U.S. presidential election, the Sierra Club reported that it had recruited 18,000 new members, smashing the previous one-month recruiting record of 1,200 new members.

While Trump’s agenda may ease corporate governance standards across several industries, a new generation of activist investors may stand in to hold them accountable.

“People are very passionate about the environment, about labor rights,” says Hardeep Walia, CEO of Motif Investing. “They want to vote, not just with their consumption dollars, but with their investment dollars, in favor of their causes.”

Where regulation might no longer be counted on to create progress towards environmentally and socially conscious businesses, investor activism may step in to pressure companies to adopt new policies and procedures.

Many participants in U.S. ESG funds live in Europe and Asia. Elsewhere in the developed world, environmental stewardship, corporate citizenship and responsive governance have become expectations, and a sizable portion of the U.S. investment universe is held by European, Canadian and East-Asian investors with a taste for sustainability.

“Over the past eight years, probably longer than that, the trend has been more people investing with the philosophy that they should support companies doing better for the environment or their communities,” says Zerilli. “I don’t know if this administration can change that, people have already been leaning towards this.”

The interest in sustainability and ESG investing has gone well beyond government halls and street protests. The private sector is embracing sustainability based on simple economics—it’s better to reduce waste and use fewer resources because it leads to lower overhead. A company with socially responsible policies and ethical corporate governance is less likely to be fined by a regulator or targeted with litigation, and happier workers tend to be more motivated and productive with lower absenteeism, says Anthony Eames, vice president and director of responsible investment strategy at Calvert Investments, a subsidiary of Eaton Vance.

In 2016, the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board released a report that 72 out of 79 of the U.S.’s industries, representing $27.5 trillion or 93 percent of the U.S. capital markets, are significantly affected in some way by climate risk.

According to a 2015 survey by the CFA institute, 73 percent of portfolio managers incorporate ESG factors into their investment decision-making, and with good reason, says Kenneth St. Amand, vice president and portfolio manager at Mirova, a subsidiary of Natixis Asset Management focused on socially responsible investing.

“Even as regulations ease, the implications of unsustainable business practices, of poor social stewardship and flawed corporate governance are still there,” says St. Amand. “These companies are still operating in communities, and communities are still free to impose penalties on polluters and poor actors. There are still financial implications for poor ESG performance.”

Take Volkswagen, which in April 2015 admitted that it had cheated emissions tests for its lineup of diesel vehicles. As a result, the company’s shares lost 60 percent of their value over the next several months.

According to Morningstar, ESG funds were a lone bright spot in the active mutual fund landscape. While $127 billion flowed out of active equity mutual funds in 2016, $3 billion flowed into funds with some sort of ESG mandate.

“I don’t see Trump as having an impact on the investing trend,” says Webster from OWLshares. “The previous administration wasn’t leading demand, they were following demand. The public zeitgeist has been brewing for years towards a more sustainable, socially responsible sentiment, and one administration isn’t going to change that.”

The financial industry’s zeal for environmental sustainability might shock some environmentally minded investors. In February, a collection of asset managers accounting for more than $2.8 trillion in assets under management called for all developed economies to phase out subsidies for fossil fuel companies.

In March, BlackRock announced that it will start to become more involved in pressuring corporate boards to address climate change, diversity and labor practices. Later in March, State Street introduced tools allowing asset managers and institutions to evaluate their holdings for ESG-related risks.

Offering advice and investment recommendations with an ESG tilt may help attract clients driven by their own sense of social responsibility, and could help keep existing clients invested during Trump’s presidential tenure.

Despite the recent flurries of ESG activity, the financial industry and investment community are neophytes to the ESG universe, says Zerilli.

“Most advisors, and many investors, are still in learning mode on ESG,” says Zerilli from John Hancock. “Quite a few people are still asking what they will have to give up in terms of financial performance to invest in this way, which shows that there’s still a long way to go in educating the public about ESG.”