Editorial - December 2022
Temps de lecture : min
The great declassification
Some may have been surprised by the hype around the wave of declassifications of investment funds with the highest sustainability classification according to European regulations (Article 9 of the Disclosure Regulation, the SFDR).Besides the fact that these declassifications discredit so-called “sustainable” financial products suspected of green-washing, it mainly illustrates the sharp increase in regulatory and legal risk in the management and distribution of savings products.
Without condoning certain excesses, it should, however, be recalled that investment funds had to be classified last year (by 10 March 2021 exactly), based on concepts that were not clearly defined by each financial product manufacturer. Indeed, the SFDR leaves each institution responsible for classifying its products based on the concepts of “promoting” sustainability (Article 8), sustainability “objectives” (Article 9), or by default according to the general provisions of Article 6, which apply to all products.
It is therefore on this voluntarily ill-defined basis, given the lack of maturity of the subject, that asset management companies were obliged to position themselves. Our national regulator, for its part, chose to develop its own fund classification system at the same time.
Asset management companies therefore had to take the regulatory risk of anticipating developments in prolific, shifting sustainability regulations. Unsurprisingly, the few clarifications provided in the meantime added more complexity.
At Covéa Finance, we chose from the outset to resist the temptation to classify some of our funds according to Article 9, but to reasonably classify as Article 8 those funds that seemed to have the most evidence of compliance with the concepts of the regulation.
In our view, being responsible investors involves progressing instead of regressing.
Written by
Yannick TATIBOUËT
Director of Strategic Intelligence, External Relations, and coordination on sustainable finance
Decembre 28, 2022
Covéa Finance, a portfolio management company of the MAAF, MMA and GMF groups with share capital of €24 901 254, incorporated as a single-person simplified joint stock company, registered with the Paris Trade and Companies Register under number 407 625 607 and approved by the French Financial Markets Authority under number GP 97 007.
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