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Response to the Commission's Call for Evidence on SFDR

Publications • June 3, 2025

Response to the Commission's Call for Evidence on SFDR

Response to the Commission's Call for Evidence on SFDR

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Expertises

Transparency

Focused on supply for finance, this pillar of activities monitors financial institutions' sustainability practices such as net-zero commitments.

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Retail investing

There is a major market failure between EU retail investors investment preferences and the fact that only a small share actually hold impact generating financial products. Since 2017, the Sustainable Finance Observatory has been a leading authority shaping EU retail sustainable finance through research, policy engagement, product innovation (e.g. MyFairMoney) and large-scale communication.

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Impact measurement

We expect a multi-trillion euro market potential for financial products that genuinely generate measurable social and environmental impact. Despite growing regulatory attention, markets still lack a credible, standardized methodology to assess investor contribution, creating risks of impact-washing and misallocation of capital. SFO's analysis and knowledge production since 2018 has shaped EU sustainable finance policy, and produced tools such as the Impact Potential Assessment Framework (IPAF), ISO 14097, Climate Impact Management System and guidance on environmental impact claims and client sustainability preferences. Widely trusted by policymakers and market actors, we are now scaling IPAF and building AI-enabled assessment and allocation tools which support integration of investor impact into EU regulation. Our goal is to help investors optimise portfolio impact and direct capital towards high-impact investments at scale.

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We focus on 5 critical issues the revision of the SFDR should address :  

  1. Any new approach to sustainable financial product categorisation must be based on retail investors’ sustainability-related objectives and integrate the concept of “investor impact”/”impact generating investments”
  2. Adapt the MiFID II/IDD sustainability preference categories to the new SFDR categorisation approach and clarify the definition of sustainability-related objectives at the earliest opportunity
  3. Alongside any technical clarification of definitions and concepts in the SFDR, care must also be taken to ensure retail investors are furnished with adequate and easily understandable information about financial products
  4. Ensure strong adherence to the better regulation principles and avoid earlier pitfalls which materialised with concurrent development of sustainable finance regulation under the Action Plan
  5. Any review of PAI indicators must also address the current concerns about lack of reliability in relation to quantitative data which is reported