ESG - Sustainable Finance Update

In the last weeks and months, the European Commission and the European supervisory authorities have published guidance in order to clarify certain concepts concerning the application of SFDR and the Taxonomy Regulation.

These include the SFDR RTS (adopted by the European Common on 6 April 2022 but not yet published in the OJEU) which should become applicable on 1 January 2023, a Commission FAQ on SFDR (25 May 2022), a Supervisory Statement (31 May 2022) from ESMA on EU convergence in the supervision of investment funds with sustainability features and another from the ESAs (2 June 2022) with clarifications on the SFDR RTS.

In terms of next steps, as of 2 August 2022, MiFID firms that provide portfolio management services and investment advice to their clients will have to include in the suitability test specific questions relating to the sustainable investment preferences of those clients (Delegated Regulation (EU) 2021/1253).