Since March 1, all funds wishing to obtain the socially responsible investment (SRI) label must respect the criteria of the new framework published at the end of 2023. The latter now includes an exclusion criterion on fossil fuels, relating to “companies which exploit coal or unconventional hydrocarbons, as well as those which launch new hydrocarbon (oil or gas) exploration, exploitation or refining projects.
In the latest edition of its annual study on responsible investment funds in France, the employee savings specialist Epsor notes that half of the products currently holding the label do not meet this new criterion. For example, 1 in 4 SRI funds invest in TotalEnergies, a heavyweight in the stock market, and 1 in 10 in the Italian energy company ENI.
Even more surprising, the exposure of these vehicles to fossil fuel values has increased over the past two years, reaching 6.63% of their assets, a level close to that of non-SRI labeled funds. “We expected a reversal of the trend, but this is not yet the case,” regrets Julien Niquet, co-founder of Epsor. “We should see the inflection during the next edition, because we are confident that the “Most management companies will make the effort to comply with the new specifications.” Vehicles already labeled ISR have until the end of the year to clean up their portfolio.