Ni dedikerede grønne mærkningsordninger for fossilfrie fonde er blevet lanceret i det sidste årti. I dag tildeles de til mere end 800 fonde på det europæiske marked, som i alt har omkring 60.000 fonde, skriver ESG analysehuset Novethic. De mærkede fossilfrie fonde fungerer ofte som benchmark for ansvarlige asset managers, men er stadig meget lidt kendt af et bredere investeringspublikum, skriver Novethic i en ny rapport ”Overview of european sustainable finance labels.”
Rapporten konkluderer bland andet:
The second half of 2019 witnessed increased competition between the different labels. The publication in November 2019 of the first list of funds awarded with the Towards Sustainability standard gave it a head start in terms of number of funds.
The announcement “boosted” the French SRI label, which reclaimed the highest number of funds at the end of 2019, with a total of 321 funds as of December 31st. In order to give it more publicity, the promoters of the SRI label set up an extensive communication campaign on Parisian buses for several weeks. All labels have increased in terms of number of funds and volume of assets under management since March 2019.
Belgium and France are striving to become the label market leader, but Luxembourg is not lagging. Wishing to be “a forerunner in offering favourable taxation for sustainable finance”, the country has been examining, since the end of 2019, an amendment to Luxembourg’s UCITS law in order to reduce the annual subscription tax rate applied to sustainable funds from 0.05% to 0.01%.
This change will apply to funds with an ESG, green or social objective and which are awarded with a sustainable finance label (ESG or green). In the draft law, the SRI, Greenfin, Nordic Swan, Umweltzeichen, LuxFLAG and FNG labels were selected. A decree will later specify the conditions of application of the amendment.
While the European taxonomy and the ecolabel project are beginning to take shape, one cannot help but note a lack of willingness to harmonize between countries, apart from climate exclusions for the labels that use them. It is all the more unfortunate since most major asset management companies market their UCITS sustainable funds in several European countries.
