The SFDR Policy of LFDE

Since the Paris Climate Agreements and the announcement of the European Commission Action Plan for Sustainable Finance, awareness of environmental – especially climate -, social and governance issues has increased. It is changing the traditional view of finance towards more responsible finance.

In this context, Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) 2019/2088 enters into force on 10 March 2021. It aims to make up for the lack of harmonized rules on disclosure of sustainability information within the European Union. This information is intended for end investors. It should give them the possibility to compare extra-financial characteristics and performances of various financial products.

Faced with this new regulatory challenge, La Financière de l’Échiquier (LFDE), a historical player in responsible investment, is fully committed to meeting these new challenges and obligations in terms of sustainable finance.

In this context, we are publishing today, on our website, our SFDR Policy, which sets out the extra-financial approach implemented within LFDE and the application of these new regulations.

This Policy details how LFDE’s funds are categorized. The approach adopted by LFDE is in line with its own requirements in terms of Responsible Investment. We chose to include in articles 8 and 9 only products for which the extra-financial approach is significantly engaging. Our impact funds are thus categorized in Article 9 and our SRI funds in Article 8. In parallel, products for which extra-financial constraints exist but do not significantly constrain our investments, such as our funds managed under ESG integration, are now classified in article 6 of the SFDR Regulation.

All competitors in the market have not chosen the same categorization philosophy. For our part, we have chosen, while waiting for the regulatory authorities to issue more pronounced guidelines on the subject, to adopt a cautious approach. This approach puts emphasis on our commitment to take into account environmental, social and governance issues, which is the main expectation of European authorities.

The matrix below shows the categorization of our products according to SFDR regulation, but also the categorization of our products linked to the AMF regulation DOC-2020-03, which aims to determine whether or not UCIs are significantly committed to taking extra-financial criteria into account.

 

SFDR

Please note that the funds mentioned may not be registered in some countries. If you have any questions, please contact your usual contact at LFDE.

The LFDE teams are at your disposal to help you better understand this new regulation and to share with you their convictions in terms of Responsible Investment.