According to the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), a qualitative assessment of whether or not a fund is sustainable according to ESG criteria must be carried out as of March 10, 2021.
The criteria defined in the Taxonomy Ordinance serve to determine whether or not an economic activity can be classified as ecologically sustainable. Fund managers and institutional investors offering financial products are therefore under the obligation to disclose how and to what extent they apply the criteria for sustainable economic activity.
The EU-Disclosure Regulation, Regulation (EU) 2019/2088 of the European Parliament and the Council from November 27, 2019 defines how transparency is to be ensured within the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), especially when dealing with sustainability risks.
Products that neither advertise with sustainable or social features nor pursue a sustainable investment objective are required to provide the following information in Art. 7 of the Tax Ordinance:
“The investments underlying this financial product do not take into account the EU criteria for ecologically sustainable economic activities.”
The EU-Regulations do not constitute an obligation to invest in sustainability projects, but rather a disclosure obligation.
In Liechtenstein, the new EU-Regulations will be transposed into national law at a later date, but for funds with distribution in at least one member state of the European Union they must be observed as of March 10, 2021.
Most recently, the European Supervisory Authorities (ESAs) initiated a consultation process to develop a generally binding template to set standards for ESG-Reporting.
Until the beginning of December, non-financial companies and asset managers falling under Article 8 of Regulation (EU) 2020/852 (the “Taxonomy Regulation”) were also able to submit their contribution to the consultation paper on the draft recommendation to the European Commission.
ESMA, EBA and EIOPA will coordinate the input from the consultation papers and prepare the advice to be submitted to the Commission by the end of February 2021.
To receive more information about the current status or our individualised ESG-Reporting solutions, feel free to contact us.
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