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).
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has published its Investment Fund Industry Fact Sheet for December together with an overview of the net sales data for UCITS and AIFs in 2020.
Thomas Tilley, Senior Economist, commented on the December figures: “Net sales of UCITS and AIFs surged to an absolute record in December 2020, as investor confidence in a successful exit from the Covid-19 crisis continued to strengthen.”
The main developments in December are as follows:
The European Fund and Asset Management Association (EFAMA) has published today its response to the European Commissions consultation document proposal for an initiative on sustainable corporate governance.
As the voice of the European asset management industry, EFAMA strongly welcomes the development of the EU Taxonomy and its proposed technical screening criteria in the Delegated Acts. EFAMA sees the Taxonomy as a critical tool to unleash the potential of sustainable finance in Europe by assisting issuers, project promoters, companies, investors, and other financial market participants in identifying truly sustainable economic activities. |
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.*