Institutional investors' and asset managers' duties regarding sustainability

Key points:

The EESC

• welcomes the design of the Action Plan on Financing Sustainable Growth and the legislative proposals stemming from it;

• supports that fiduciary obligations of financial market participants will help end investors to bring their sustainability preferences into line with their informed investment decisions;

Financial market participants help the European economy transition towards a greener, more resilient and circular system, by incorporating Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors:

• into advisory activities to end investors, by asking about their sustainability preferences;
• into the design or selection of a portfolio of financial assets;
• into the transparent disclosure and reliable explanation of their decision-making process;
• into the pre-contractual ex-ante information on integrating risks and their expected impact;
• into the periodical reports by stating the overall sustainability-related impact

The EESC

• supports that the starting point is to gradually define – using rigorous scientific evidence – which activities are sustainable;
• finds that right from the outset, with the environmental criteria, the social safeguards agreed at international level must be respected, as well as the European Pillar of Social Rights;
• demands that safeguards should continue right to the governance aspect;
• highlights the need to ensure the involvement of civil society and the social partners at every stage of the process;
• firmly believes in designing sustainable pan-European financial products.