Time for action

The world’s great balances are shifting. Reports on the state of our planet and its ecosystems keep coming in, each more alarming than the last. But there’s still time for action. We believe that finance has a crucial role to play in directing capital toward the most responsible companies. We believe in the power of impact investing on the financial markets.

As a pioneer in listed impact investing, La Financière de l’Échiquier (LFDE) continues to go after impact¹. In 2021, LFDE adopted a rigorous, innovative impact doctrine reflecting our unique and demanding positioning and setting a framework for our impact investments.

Launched in 2017, Echiquier Positive Impact Europe² is a trailblazing fund, still writing its story with the European companies its selects and supports. In 2021, its investment process was made more demanding, and ex ante impact indicators were formalised. Its search for social impact also intensified: we decided to involve a percentage of our clients in choosing a high-social-impact project, and contributed additional financial support by paying a portion of the fund’s management fees back into it. With their participation, which we were intent on managing, the Fondation Excellence Ruralité was chosen. This organisation is working to enliven rural areas in France by developing a new model of schooling that serves their needs.

The commitment of Echiquier Positive Impact Europe’s management team is also, and especially, the commitment of a team who supports the companies in its portfolio as time goes by, sharing non-financial progress focus areas with them that are tracked over time. While we never forget that the progress achieved in the environmental and/or social policies deployed by businesses are, above all, the fruit of the management team’s labour, we also never doubt that it is the duty and the prerogative of investors to share their expertise, helping to increase their positive impact and reduce their negative externalities, in service of the common good.

2021 was an intense year – a year of achievement and doubt, progress toward a more sustainable model, and individual and collective commitments. This fourth annual impact report³ retraces the path taken during the year, measuring the positive and negative impacts, with respect to each company and each of the nine Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations, on which its investment strategy is based.

LFDE’s impact line-up is expanding, and we will continue to dedicate all our energy towards making an impact and helping companies.

¹ Investors should note that their investment in the sub-fund does not generate a direct impact on the environment or the company, but that the sub-fund seeks to select and invest in companies that meet the specific criteria set out in the management strategy. For more information on the characteristics, risks, and costs of these funds, we invite you to read the regulatory documents available on our website at www.lfde.com. The investor’s attention is drawn to the fact that the management company may decide to terminate the marketing arrangements of its collective investment undertakings in accordance with Article 93a of Directive 2009/65/EC and Article 32a of Directive 2011/61/EU.

² The Fund is mostly invested in equities and is primarily exposed to the risk of capital loss, equity risk, currency risk and discretionary management risk.

³ To access the 4th Echiquier Positive Impact Europe report, click here.