L’art de noyer le poisson : notre réponse à la Caisse des Dépôts

Reclaim Finance disputes the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations' (CDC) justifications for its lack of transparency and argues that the CDC's shareholder engagement strategy is insufficient to stop investment in fossil fuel expansion. The document highlights a conflict between the CDC's secrecy and recommendations from the Cour des Comptes, while clarifying discrepancies in the reporting of fossil fuel exposure figures.

• The CDC maintains a policy of not disclosing the names of companies in its portfolio, justifying this as a means to protect against speculative strategies and ensure constructive shareholder dialogue. Reclaim Finance argues this contradicts best practices followed by other public institutional investors—such as Norway's NBIM, Sweden's AP7, and the Netherlands' ABP—as well as recommendations from the Cour des Comptes, which states that public votes are necessary for effective engagement.
• Reclaim Finance criticizes the CDC's shareholder engagement for lacking a systematic escalation process, such as voting against management to penalize companies pursuing fossil fuel expansion. The document notes that the Cour des Comptes has also observed that the CDC's climate engagement lacks a medium-term strategy with clear objectives and escalation principles.
• The CDC's existing climate commitments are described as insufficient. Specifically, its cap on exposure to companies developing new oil exploration and production projects does not cover gas and allows for new investments as long as a maximum threshold is not exceeded. Additionally, the CDC's limit—requiring portfolio companies to represent less than 20% of global hydrocarbon project developments—is viewed as an arbitrary threshold that ignores scientific recommendations to stop all new fossil expansion.
• There is a discrepancy between the CDC's reported fossil fuel exposure (5 billion euros) and Reclaim Finance's estimate. Reclaim Finance explains that the CDC likely uses a weighted method based on revenue shares, whereas Reclaim Finance counts 100% of the activity of companies operating in fossil fuels to assess the CDC's capacity to support non-aligned companies. Following further exchanges, Reclaim Finance revised its figure to 9.2 billion euros held in companies active in the fossil fuel sector, including 1.1 billion euros in green bonds.

APA

Martin, L. (2025). L’art de noyer le poisson : notre réponse à la Caisse des Dépôts. Reclaim Finance. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2025/04/15/lart-de-noyer-le-poisson-notre-reponse-a-la-caisse-des-depots/

Chicago

Martin, Léo. L’art de noyer le poisson : notre réponse à la Caisse des Dépôts. Reclaim Finance, 2025. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2025/04/15/lart-de-noyer-le-poisson-notre-reponse-a-la-caisse-des-depots/.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Martin |first1=Léo |title=L’art de noyer le poisson : notre réponse à la Caisse des Dépôts |publisher=Reclaim Finance |date=15 April 2025 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2025/04/15/lart-de-noyer-le-poisson-notre-reponse-a-la-caisse-des-depots/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{martin2025lart, author = {Martin, Léo}, title = {{L’art de noyer le poisson : notre réponse à la Caisse des Dépôts}}, publisher = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2025}, month = apr, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/2025/04/15/lart-de-noyer-le-poisson-notre-reponse-a-la-caisse-des-depots/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }