Companies will abandon sponsorship of literary and fringe arts in favour of arts sectors less prone to protest, experts say, in the wake of author Richard Flanagan’s refusal of prizemoney from a funds manager until it reduces its fossil fuel exposure.

The 2014 Booker Prize winner last week won the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction for Question 7, in part a meditation on the climate crisis. However, he turned down the $100,000 prize pending a meeting with the Edinburgh-based investment management firm to discuss what fossil fuel extraction was doing to his native Tasmania.