What is the SFDR?

Updated: 
May 25, 2023
Article

The European regulation—Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation—is used to help improve the transparency of financial decisions.

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In March 2021, the European Union’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR for short) became a mandatory disclosure obligation for EU-based financial market participants (FMPs) and financial advisors. The SFDR standardizes environmental, social, and governance-oriented (ESG) disclosures in the financial realm. SFDR aims to promote transparency and human rights and ensure investments do no significant harm to the EU’s environmental objectives in the fight against climate change. It is widely considered a powerful tool against greenwashing because it standardizes the definition of sustainable activities and initiatives and establishes acceptable evidence to demonstrate such claims.

Regulations & Frameworks Explained

This post is part of “Regulations & Frameworks Explained,” a short series that covers global climate disclosure regulation, sustainability matters, and the leading voluntary standards and frameworks that underpin the evolving landscape of laws regulating climate disclosure.

Read more:

What is the TCFD?
TCFD: The common thread across climate regulation
What is the CDP?
What is the EU Taxonomy?
What is the CSRD?
What is the ISSB?
What are the ISSB disclosure requirements?
A guide to SFDR regulations and requirements
What is SFDR reporting?
What are the GRI Standards?

What is SFDR?

The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) came about after a two-year review from 2016–2018 by the EU’s High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on sustainable finance. HLEG sketched out two core aims for the EU: first, integrate sustainability into financial systems; second, help funnel capital into sustainable investments. The SFDR helps achieve both goals by elevating considerations around sustainability impacts in investments and investment processes and sustainability-oriented information around financial products. It requires asset managers, fund managers, investment managers, etc., to show whether or not investments have a sustainability or ESG focus, regardless of if they identify themselves as an “ESG-focused” financial firm.

Before the SFDR, financial firms in the EU could create their own criteria or provide blanket statements on their ESG status. They could promote investments and activities as ESG-centric without any standardized reporting criteria for accountability on whether or not those statements were factual—a behavior often characterized as greenwashing. For example, a firm could say they are ESG-centric in its approach outwardly while simultaneously financing a major oil field in an ecologically high-risk area. The SFDR put a stop to that lack of transparency within the EU and gives clarity on the labeling of ESG financial products.

Under the SFDR, ESG disclosure obligations are mandatory for asset managers and FMPs operating within the EU. The European Commission introduced the SFDR in tandem with the EU Taxonomy Regulation—EU Taxonomy for short. While the EU Taxonomy provides regulatory technical standards around uniform standards, policies like the SFDR give EU-based financial institutions an understanding of how, what, and why to report. The SFDR’s core goal is to avoid greenwashing in financial products in the EU by requiring more sustainability-related information. With the SFDR, European investors have the transparency they need to make investments that correspond to their own sustainability goals.

Who is impacted by the SFDR?

The SFDR forces firms to consider their strategic decisions and general approach toward sustainability and how they communicate those considerations outwardly. The SFDR primarily applies to EU-based financial institutions with over 500 employees and all FMPs, including banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and asset managers. In addition to financial advisers based in the EU, the regulation also impacts those based outside the EU who market their products to EU-based clients. The SFDR touches virtually anyone and everyone operating in the EU financial market.

The scope of global and European money impacted by the SFDR is colossal. In 2021, the total worth of EU-based financial corporations was valued at €81.6 trillion. And because the SFDR affects non-EU-based financial firms via their EU subsidiaries, its reach extends further. An analysis of globally based companies with at least one subsidiary in the EU financial market showed that 62 global parent companies together represent a collective $3.2 trillion (USD) annual market cap. U.S.-based parent companies alone represented a $2.5 trillion (USD) annual market cap and accounted for 22 companies.

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Core disclosure requirements

Under the SFDR, sustainability impacts must be disclosed and identified at the product and entity levels. Think of entity-level disclosures as the ESG statement a financial firm puts on its website. Entity-level disclosures require financial firms to share information on their corporate websites about how their advisors, financial services, pension products, and alternative investment funds consider sustainability.

Think of product-level disclosures as a way for financial firms to classify how green an investment or activity is. Product-level disclosures under SFDR require advisers and financial market participants to disclose product information on sustainability for ESG-oriented products and non-ESG products. The SFDR requires firms to classify products and investment advice offered across three categories: mainstream products (Article 6), products that promote environmental or social criteria (Article 8), or products with sustainable investment objectives (Article 9). Product labeling aims to inform investors about whether and to what extent sustainability, environment, and human rights considerations are considered in investment activities.

Entity vs. product level disclosure criteria

Entity level
• Information on how said entity embeds sustainability risks into financial advice and investment decision-making processes.
• A statement on how Principle Adverse Impacts (PAIs) are considered and prioritized on sustainability factors.
• Information on how remuneration policies line up with the integration of sustainability risks, including around potential conflicts of interest.
• Due diligence standards for pre-contractual disclosures that integrate sustainability risk, including assessments on how sustainability risks could impact the performance of financial products.

Product level
Not-so-green financial products: Article 6 products that do not embed ESG considerations into decision-making processes and do not meet the criteria for Article 8 or 9. In these cases, firms that consider Principle Adverse Impacts (PAIs) will have to explain how their financial products account for these impacts and whether or not they intend to reach sustainability goals. These could be investments in fossil fuel companies or mining operations with adverse environmental effects.
Light green financial products: Article 8 products that promote environmental or social characteristics must have additional information on how they are met, including disclosures on EU Taxonomy alignment of economic activities. These could be investments in companies that have positive employee relations and management structures or businesses with an action plan to phase in net-zero targets.
Dark green financial products: Article 9 products that identify sustainable investment as a specific objective must show how the objective is reached along with additional disclosure alignment with the EU Taxonomy. Under Article 9, investments must consider inequities, carbon emissions, and environmental impacts. This could be, for example, an investment in tea cultivation that provides fair wages. There is a focus on employing vulnerable local populations while also considering and ameliorating any environmental and social impacts associated with tea production.

Together, product- and entity-level disclosures force financial firms to walk the talk on ESG. FMPs must issue periodic reports on their activities and follow a technical reporting template standardizing reporting across the financial sector. Reporting is due by June 30 every year for the previous calendar year. The phase-in process is well underway, and we’ve entered the third reference period for disclosures. That means the time is now for EU-based FMPs and subsidiaries to consider and adhere to the SFDR.

Sustainability indicators and impacts

The SFDR introduced a new concept around Principle Adverse Impacts (PAIs), representing the negative impacts financial advice or investment could have on sustainability factors. Those sustainability factors include anti-bribery, anti-corruption, human rights, environmental, social, and employment issues, and, more broadly, ESG. The SFDR aligns with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, the UN Global Compact (UNGC), and the goals illustrated in the EU’s Green Deal, namely, to make Europe climate neutral by 2050 and to disconnect finance from extractive resource use.

When FMPs and financial advisors disclose their sustainability information on an entity and product level, environmental and social indicators are a core focal point for consideration. When it comes to activities that are PAIs, an understanding of mandatory adverse sustainability impacts is required to ensure a comprehensive assessment of negative sustainability impacts across ESG indicators, particularly for investments. These categorize into nine environmental and five social indicators for financial advisors and FMPs to incorporate into their PAI mandatory assessments under the SFDR.

Environmental indicators Social indicators
• Total GHG emissions for Scope 1, 2, & 3 emissions
• Carbon footprint
• GHG intensity
• Investments in fossil fuel companies and companies active in the sector
• Non-renewable energy consumption and production
• Energy consumption intensity for high climate impact sectors
• Investments in biodiversity-sensitive areas
• Emissions to water use ratio for investee companies
• Ratio of hazardous waste
• Violations of the UNGC Principles or the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
• Lack of monitoring, compliance, and grievances processes to address violations with the UNGC Principles or the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
• Gender pay gaps
• Gender diversity of Board
• Investments in controversial weapons

How does the SFDR relate to the EU Taxonomy and other EU policies?

Through a series of regulatory measures, the EU continues to push the envelope on sustainability reporting across financial and non-financial sustainability disclosures. The SFDR and EU Taxonomy are interrelated but not synonymous. The EU Taxonomy is the primary tool for the EU to set criteria to determine if an activity is sustainable while providing a uniform reporting standard for various sectors.

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The SFDR requires product-level disclosures to align with the EU Taxonomy. Entity-level disclosures aim to promote increased transparency by forcing entities to directly list related sustainability risks and disclosures on their website. From 2023, products that promote ESG must align with the EU Taxonomy’s objectives, like circular economy, pollution control and prevention, protection of biodiversity and ecosystems, and protection and sustainable use of water and marine resources.

Like other EU sustainability disclosure policies, the SFDR is built around transparency and accountability and encourages a transition from extractive resources. Non-financial sustainability reporting requirements, like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), further encourage companies across various sectors to address sustainability challenges better.

Benefits and shortfalls of the SFDR

Reporting on the SFDR will continue to generate a well of sustainable finance data for investors to consider that could transform markets in the EU and globally. Sustainability disclosure policies like SFDR could pave the way for a future green economy. Ultimately, if investments continue to fuel extractive and high climate-related impact industries, we will struggle to keep the Paris Agreement goal of keeping warming below 1.5°C.

While the SFDR puts investment decision-making and investments themselves under the sustainability microscope, it does not regulate or restrict the import of goods into Europe that rely on climate-, biodiversity-, or human rights-impacted industries. In 2022, the EU implemented a novel carbon border tariff for imports like steel and cement from hard-to-abate industries. However, this policy leaves out leather produced from deforestation and other examples of environmental and social harm. A large area of supply chain financial flows is missing by focusing exclusively on European markets and actors. Other recent EU policies, like the CSRD, cover value and supply chains. Still, limited restrictions on high climate impact and human rights-impacted products are finding their way into the EU. The SFDR is yet another EU sustainability policy action in the tapestry of EU policies linked to the EU Green Deal. In time, we should expect additional policy instruments to come online.

Importance of SFDR

Financial market actors should be increasingly aware of how their investments contribute toward scope 1, 2, and 3 emissions and environmental and social harm. The SFDR will transform the way investments happen, both in and outside Europe. Firms will have to account for how they integrate ESG into their investments. Financial firms and advisors will no longer be able to create their own blanket ESG statements while simultaneously investing in areas that cause irreparable environmental and social harm. Greenwashing in the EU financial market is effectively over. These disclosures will empower both large institutional and everyday investors to choose green investment products and open funds and accelerate the path toward net-zero.

Regulations & Frameworks Explained

This post is part of “Regulations & Frameworks Explained,” a short series that covers global climate disclosure regulation, sustainability matters, and the leading voluntary standards and frameworks that underpin the evolving landscape of laws regulating climate disclosure.

Read more:

What is the TCFD?
TCFD: The common thread across climate regulation
What is the ISSB?
That is the CSRD?
What is the EU Taxonomy?


Editorial statement
At Sustain.Life, our goal is to provide the most up-to-date, objective, and research-based information to help readers make informed decisions. Written by practitioners and experts, articles are grounded in research and experience-based practices. All information has been fact-checked and reviewed by our team of sustainability professionals to ensure content is accurate and aligns with current industry standards. Articles contain trusted third-party sources that are either directly linked to the text or listed at the bottom to take readers directly to the source.
Author
Martha Molfetas
Martha Molfetas is a research consultant, strategist, and writer with over ten years of experience in the sustainability space.
Reviewer
Alyssa Rade
Alyssa Rade is the chief sustainability officer at Sustain.Life. She has over ten years of corporate sustainability experience and guides Sustain.Life’s platform features.
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The takeaway

– SFDR aims to promote transparency and human rights and ensure investments do no significant harm to the EU’s environmental objectives in the fight against climate change. Think of it as a way to give EU-based financial institutions an understanding of how, what, and why to report.

– Its two core aims for the EU: first, integrate sustainability into financial systems; second, help funnel capital into sustainable investments.

– The SFDR primarily applies to EU-based financial institutions with over 500 employees and all FMPs, but touches virtually anyone and everyone operating in the EU financial market.