PensionsEurope, the body that represents national associations of pension funds, has welcomed the EU’s initiatives in sustainable finance that include establishing a unified EU classification system of sustainable economic activities and regulation on disclosure of sustainable investments and sustainability risks for pension funds.

However, the body believes that regulatory approaches across investment vehicles should not be uniform and that it should “therefore not necessary to employ prescriptive legislative tools such as delegated acts”.

Matti Leppälä, secretary general/CEO of PensionsEurope said: “More and more pension funds seek to align their investments with the values of their membership and society. Targeted policy initiatives can catalyse this trend by providing better data and transparency on the ESG aspects of investments and establishing common definitions. The EU package will help to address some of the barriers pension funds face when wanting to invest more responsibly.”

On the ‘disclosures’ proposal he added: “Pension funds are already required to consider the long-term factors that drive the value of their investments as part of their fiduciary duty, including sustainability factors. They will also have to incorporate sustainability in risk-management and governance processes as part of the new IORP2 Directive, which is still being implemented. We, therefore, do not support the provisions for delegated acts that would mandate the European Commission to introduce new and more prescriptive ESG rules.”.

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