ESG-Reporting Articles

BLKB now provides its clients with extended ESG reporting. In this interview, Dominik Pfoster, Sustainable Investment Specialist at BLKB, talks about the reasons for the new ESG reporting, the added value for clients and the challenges of implementation. In doing so, he reveals why BLKB is a pioneer when it comes to transparency requirements.

From 2023, European asset managers are obliged to attach a standardised SFDR Annex (Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation) to their mandates and funds in order to avoid greenwashing. With this annex, asset managers disclose the sustainability features of their offered investment strategies on an annual basis. In order to meet these requirements by the EU, an SFDR Annex IV was developed at a major bank with Cinnamon Reporting.

Investors consider the following ESG criteria in their investment processes: They integrate ESG from classic risk considerations, are committed to climate protection or want to change the world for the better. The ESG report from bmpi AG builds on these criteria and is divided into the chapters Risk, Climate and Impact. Investors receive a flexible ESG reporting for customer portfolios, funds and mandates.

A recent survey undertaken by PwC Switzerland and bmpi indicates that investors have a need for standardization and regulation of ESG investing reporting. However, institutional investors wish for a more flexible reporting, which allows for tailoring the report to the needs of the investor. For private investors, the report will have to guide and explain much more extensively, as readers are not always fluent with ESG topics.

In a previous blog article on Sustainability in Finance – ESG and Co. we addressed terms such as Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Impact Investing, etc. and answered the question whether sustainability will fundamentally change the financial sector in the affirmative. Our market analysis has shown that there are no good ESG reports. So it was clear that we wanted to develop one.

What do ESG, SRI and impact investing stand for? The term ESG is the abbreviation for Environment, Social and Governance. ESG is a framework for examining corporate activity in these three dimensions. Environment includes ecological aspects such as climate, pollution or biodiversity. Social includes social issues such as the treatment of employees, data privacy or the avoidance of child labour.