Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations play a crucial role in asset managers' investment decisions for several reasons:
The asset management industry plays a key role in meeting the objectives of the European Green Deal to make the EU’s economy sustainable. Our members integrate ESG considerations across their risk management processes and investment decisions. They develop sustainable investment products and foster transparency to fight greenwashing. This increases choice, trust and, in turn, retail investors’ participation. Overall, such efforts mobilise capital towards a fair and just transition to a climate-neutral economy by 2050.
EFAMA actively contributes to the development and implementation of EU’s sustainable finance initiatives. Among them are a comprehensive transparency framework for financial market participants, standards and labels for green financial products, classification of green economic activities and policies enhancing corporate sustainability reporting.
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations play a crucial role in asset managers' investment decisions for several reasons:
In an environment with unclear definitions at EU level on key sustainable finance concepts, as well as a lack of complete, comparable and transparent ESG data, all market actors are concerned about the risk of greenwashing.
EFAMA shares the urgent need to improve the consistency and comparability of sustainability reporting at a global level. Therefore, we welcome the opportunity to respond to the ISSB consultation on the Exposure Drafts on “General Requirements for Disclosure of Sustainability Related Financial Information” (IFRS S1) and on “Climate-Related Disclosures” (IFRS S2).
Clarification is urgently needed to enable rather than restrict EU sustainable investment
The EU has been at the forefront of green bond issuances, demonstrating strong growth and commitment to sustainable finance. However, ESMA’s new Fund Naming Guidelines create inconsistencies with other sustainable finance regulations, like the EU Green Bond Standard, which could hamper the growth of the corporate green bond sector.
Regulatory clarity required to sustain further growth
This report looks specifically at the evolving trends of the equity asset class of sustainable UCITS, whose share is the highest (53%) in total sustainable UCITS funds. It highlights their role as investment vehicles in facilitating the green transition. The universe of sustainable equity UCITS funds is defined based on Morningstar’s classification of sustainable financial instruments1. This means funds must claim to have a sustainability objective, and/or use binding ESG criteria for their investment selection.
The report looks at the major trends in the ESG UCITS market, the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and the behaviour of ESG and non-ESG funds.
For this Market Insights, EFAMA collaborated with its member associations and strategy consultants at INDEFI to estimate the level and nature of ESG investment by European asset managers at the end of 2019, distinguishing between the ESG strategies applied at the firm level and those applied at the level of individual fund and discretionary mandate. The assets under management covered in the report include EUR 12.5 trillion of investment fund assets and EUR 11.4 trillion of mandate assets.*