16.06.2021 – 10:00
Triodos Bank
Frankfurt am Main (ots)
The market for sustainable investments has been growing rapidly for years. But what has developed on the German market in the first quarter of 2021 makes you sit up and take notice: The assets managed for German clients in sustainable funds rose in the first three months of this year by 107 billion euros to a new high of 254 billion euros the Federal Association of Investment and Asset Management (BVI) reported. This corresponds to a share of 8 percent of the total market. At the end of 2020, the share was still 5 percent.
How does this sudden increase come about? The Stock exchanges newspaper wrote: “The miraculous proliferation of sustainable funds”. The suspicion of greenwashing arises. Since the EU Disclosure Regulation came into force on March 10th, many fund companies have apparently used the EU guidelines to convert conventional products to sustainable investment strategies – without, however, significantly changing the content. You have simply given conventional funds a new label.
The new EU regulation is intended to harmonize regulations for the classification of sustainable funds and thus make the market clearer. Since then, capital management companies have had to provide transparent information about the sustainability aspects of their financial products and classify their funds into one of three categories: Put simply, products that do not explicitly call themselves “sustainable” fall under Article 6 of the regulation. If funds take ecological and social aspects into account, i.e. a kind of sustainability light, they meet the criteria according to Article 8. Article 9 classifies products that pursue a specific sustainability goal. They can also be referred to as impact funds.
It is noticeable that the proportion of Article 9 funds is still negligible. An analysis by the rating agency Morningstar of almost 5,700 funds and ETFs offered in Europe at the end of March had already shown that only 3.6 percent of the funds are classified according to the strict variant (including, by the way, all Triodos Investment Management funds).
So we are dealing with a boom in light green funds that are transparent, but often do not meet the expectations of sustainability. The Ecoreporter writes: “It is doubtful that all of these products can be recommended without reservation for sustainable investors.” The EU disclosure regulation has done consumers a disservice. Against this background, the initiative of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin), which aims to provide more clarity for sustainable funds, is only to be welcomed. Because in the end, consumers have to be certain of what their money is financing. This certainty is not provided by relabelling.
Information on Triodos Bank
The Triodos Bank NV (www.triodos.de) is Europe’s leading sustainability bank. Founded in 1980, it now has more than 720,000 customers who can rely on Triodos Bank to only finance companies, institutions and projects that contribute to the well-being of people and the environment. For example, they come from the fields of renewable energies, organic farming, education, care for the elderly and sustainable real estate. Triodos Bank, Triodos Investment Management and Triodos Private Banking have a combined business volume of 20.3 billion euros. Triodos Bank employs 1,592 people in five countries in Europe: the Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain, Spain and Germany. Triodos Bank is one of the founders of the Global Alliance for Banking on Values (www.gabv.org), an international network of 60 leading sustainability banks.
In 2016 Triodos Bank was named “Best Business Customer Bank” by the Handelsblatt. In 2020 it was voted “Best Sustainable Bank” for the fourth time by its customers on the BankingCheck.de portal.
Press contact:
Contact person for further information:
Florian Koss
Head of Communication & Marketing
Triodos Bank NV Germany
Falkstraße 5
D-60487 Frankfurt am Main
Tel.: +49 (0)69-7171-9183
Fax.: +49 (0)69-7171-9223
Email: [email protected]
Original content by: Triodos Bank, transmitted by news aktuell
– .
