Confusion about sustainability labels | DiePress.com

Deka Bank pulled the best ethical rating from two other funds. The reason is the new EU directives.

Frankfurt. the bench bank The removal of the EU’s highest ESG rating from two other funds at the beginning of January. ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Standards (Environmental, Social and Responsible Corporate Governance). The background is stricter regulatory guidelines. The institute had already made the move with seven other funds.

This time the funds “Deka-Nachhaltigkeit Impact Aktien” and “Deka-Nachhaltigkeit Impact Renten” were affected, a spokeswoman said. Bloomberg News has been confirmed.

Instead of being in the upper category, also known as Section 9, funds are now classified as Section 8 products. It’s a category of fund that isn’t quite as stringent from an ESG standpoint.

“Regardless of this, the fund management sticks to the investment approach, product concept as well as the investment strategy of the two funds,” explained a spokeswoman for the fund house of German savings banks.

Also other wealth managers like Amundi and DWS Bidding farewell to the once coveted Article 9 designation in the face of growing confusion surrounding the US’s anti-greenwashing regime European Union, the so-called sustainable financial disclosure regulation. The supposed gold standard for investing in ESG has turned out to be incomplete and full of contradictions.

A Deka Bank spokeswoman also justified the reclassification with announcements and comments from supervisory authorities about the terms of the Article 9 ratings.

Union Investment, a subsidiary of the Cooperative Society DZ Bank, according to Bloomberg that it also owns seven Section 9 funds for individual and institutional clients and has not made any reclassifications yet. (Bloomberg/Red.)