La Financière de l’Échiquier launches a new phase of SRI commitment
In November 2019, the SRI approach of La Financière de l’Échiquier (LFDE) has, once more, been acknowledged as two funds[1] were awarded the Belgian “Towards Sustainability” label and the German “FNG-Siegel” label with the highest rating of three stars.
Their French state SRI labels were also renewed for three years.
In addition to this excellent news, 4 complementary LFDE funds were awarded the French state label for the first time:
- The first fund with EUR 1.2 billion under management is the biggest of the SRI certified European small and mid-cap funds
- The second one follows the same strategy in the euro zone
- The third one is a hedged fund backed by the expertise of one of our major SRI funds invested in European growth stocks
- The final fund invested in European corporate credits
These certifications are a ringing endorsement of LFDE’s process and historical commitment to SRI. Today, nearly 30% of LFDE’s assets under management are SRI-labelled, underlining the ambition of its approach. LFDE has long been convinced by SRI’s contribution to performance and contributed to the debate with its 2019 study[2] SRI & Performance which shows that taking ESG criteria into account enhances long-term performance.
Since its creation in 1991, LFDE has laid a special emphasis on corporate governance. Before any investment, its investment management teams always meet with company management and conduct interviews to form a robust idea of their environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice. This emphasis on governance is the keystone of the ESG analysis methodology, formalised in 2007 and applied to the whole product range since 2018.
As a committed investor, LFDE has been a signatory to the UN principles for responsible investment (UN PRI) since 2008 and has also signed the Montréal Carbon Pledge and FIR. In 2019, LFDE is extending its collaborative commitments, under the UN PRI against Amazon deforestation, with the Access to Medicine Foundation, supporting drug provision in developing markets, and with the Women’s Empowerment Principles, in support of gender equality.
SRI is an issue of the future and LFDE is determined to further strengthen its commitment.