LISIBILITE ET TRANSPARENCE DES FONDS ET PRODUITS D’EPARGNE

Reclaim Finance argues that French savers struggle to align their investments with ESG preferences due to a lack of transparency. To resolve this, the brief proposes a mandatory three-color indicator for all retail savings products, categorizing funds based on their exposure to controversial activities such as fossil fuels, deforestation, weaponry, human rights violations, and tobacco. The proposal includes specific thresholds for these ratings and suggests legal amendments to the French Consumer Code to mandate this disclosure.

• French savers face significant barriers in ensuring their savings products align with ESG preferences because extra-financial information on social and environmental impacts is often "illisibles, difficilement accessibles, voire inexistantes".
• Reclaim Finance highlights a gap between consumer desire and reality, noting that 86% of French people believe their banks are not transparent about the use of their savings, and 86% of 442 "sustainable" funds analyzed in 2020 financed companies involved in controversial activities.
• The proposed three-color rating system would categorize funds based on the percentage of assets in controversial activities: Note A for less than 0.5% exposure; Note B for over 0.5% exposure provided at least 0.45% of those assets are in companies with solid guarantees of transition; and Note C for over 0.5% exposure without such guarantees.
• To qualify for a 'B' rating in the fossil fuel category, companies must have a credible climate transition plan, avoid new coal, oil, or gas production/transport projects, plan to reduce oil and gas production by 2030, and exit coal by 2030 in the EU/OECD and 2040 globally.
• The proposal identifies specific criteria for other controversial sectors: deforestation (requiring a credible transition plan and a minimum of 60 points on the Global Canopy Forest500), weaponry (excluding non-conventional weapons), and human rights (requiring Global Compact signatures and adherence to EU taxonomy social safeguards).
• Tobacco is treated as a strict exclusion; any fund holding tobacco assets is automatically assigned a category C rating.
• The brief suggests that the fossil fuel indicator be made mandatory first, while others appear in fund documentation, and proposes a new article (L. 224-103) for the French Consumer Code to legally enforce these disclosures.

APA

Reclaim Finance (2023). LISIBILITE ET TRANSPARENCE DES FONDS ET PRODUITS D’EPARGNE. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2305_RF_Lisibilite-et-transparence-des-fonds-et-produits-depargne.pdf

Chicago

Reclaim Finance. LISIBILITE ET TRANSPARENCE DES FONDS ET PRODUITS D’EPARGNE. 2023. https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2305_RF_Lisibilite-et-transparence-des-fonds-et-produits-depargne.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Reclaim Finance |title=LISIBILITE ET TRANSPARENCE DES FONDS ET PRODUITS D’EPARGNE |date=May 2023 |url=https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2305_RF_Lisibilite-et-transparence-des-fonds-et-produits-depargne.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{reclaimfinance2023lisibilite, author = {{Reclaim Finance}}, title = {{LISIBILITE ET TRANSPARENCE DES FONDS ET PRODUITS D’EPARGNE}}, institution = {Reclaim Finance}, year = {2023}, month = may, url = {https://reclaimfinance.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/2305_RF_Lisibilite-et-transparence-des-fonds-et-produits-depargne.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }