{"id":14352,"date":"2023-11-07T11:55:42","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T11:55:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/?p=14352"},"modified":"2023-11-07T16:41:33","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T16:41:33","slug":"dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/","title":{"rendered":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n <\/div>\n\n\n\n

Netherlands-based markets regulator the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) announced the release of a position paper on proposed reforms to the EU\u2019s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), including recommendations to remove the regulations\u2019 Article 8 and 9 classification categories in place of a new sustainable investment labeling regime, and to require all financial products \u2013 even those without sustainability features \u2013 to provide some sustainability-related disclosures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the AFM, the proposals aim to make the SFDR regulation more meaningful to investors, and to facilitate capital flows towards investments with sustainable impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AFM\u2019s position paper was launched in light of the European Commission\u2019s ongoing review of the SFDR framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EU SFDR forms part of the EU\u2019s Action Plan on financing sustainable growth. The regulation aims to establish harmonized rules for financial market participants including investors and advisers on transparency regarding the integration of sustainability risks and the consideration of adverse sustainability impacts in their processes and the provision of sustainability\u2010related information with respect to financial products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulation includes classification levels for sustainability-focused investment funds, including \u2018Article 8\u2019 funds that \u201cpromote environmental or social characteristics or a combination of those characteristics,\u201d and the more stringent \u2018Article 9\u2019 funds, \u201cwhich have sustainable investment as their objective.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In September 2023, the Commission launched a consultation<\/a> focused on the SFDR, aimed at assessing the framework\u2019s use and usability. One of the issues discussed in the paper was that while the SFDR was designed as a disclosure regime, it is often used instead as a labelling scheme, with \u201cArticle 8\u201d and \u201cArticle 9\u201d being used as de facto ESG investment labels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to this concern, the AFM\u2019s paper proposes removing Article 8 and 9 classifications, while noting that the market practice of using the categorization as a labelling scheme \u201cdemonstrate a clear desire for consumer-friendly sustainability product classifications.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To address this need, AFM recommends introducing labels for sustainable investment products, with proposed categories including \u201cTransition products\u201d, which invests in companies that are not yet sustainable, but plan to become so; \u201cSustainable products\u201d, which don\u2019t necessarily make measurable, active impact through the investment, but cater to investors looking only to invest in sustainable assets, and; \u201cSustainable impact products,\u201d which aim to make direct and measurable impact through investments and invest only in underlying assets that already qualify as sustainable. Noting the scarcity of products that would fit the latter sustainable impact category, AFM said that these products \u201cwould be well suited to investors who favour positive sustainability impact over return.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AFM added that products using one of the above sustainability labels would need to meet minimum quality requirements, and that each category would come with a specific set of disclosure requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The AFM\u2019s position paper also proposes that \u201call financial products should provide a minimum set of disclosures on sustainability impact,\u201d including those without sustainability features, including sustainability indicators enabling investors to assess the negative impact of their investments, and compare the impact of different products. Proposed negative impact indicators for all financial products included GHG emissions, biodiversity, human rights and labor rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here<\/a> to access the AFM position paper.<\/p><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Netherlands-based markets regulator the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) announced the release of a position paper on proposed reforms to the EU\u2019s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), including recommendations to remove the regulations\u2019 Article 8 and 9 classification categories in place of a new sustainable investment labeling regime, and to require all financial […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,17],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nDutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Netherlands-based markets regulator the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) announced the release of a position paper on proposed reforms to the EU\u2019s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), including recommendations to remove the regulations\u2019 Article 8 and 9 classification categories in place of a new sustainable investment labeling regime, and to require all financial […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ESG Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ESGToday\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/AFM-regulator.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1014\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark Segal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@EsgToday\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@EsgToday\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mark Segal\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Mark Segal\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cca7a2b05e3a06d096e5740fb1433a01\"},\"headline\":\"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\"},\"wordCount\":530,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Investors\",\"Regulators\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\",\"name\":\"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/\",\"name\":\"ESG Today\",\"description\":\"ESG investing news, analysis, research and information\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization\",\"name\":\"ESG Today\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ESG-Today-Logo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ESG-Today-Logo.png\",\"width\":618,\"height\":350,\"caption\":\"ESG Today\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ESGToday\/\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/EsgToday\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/esg-today\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cca7a2b05e3a06d096e5740fb1433a01\",\"name\":\"Mark Segal\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68fbfd7923e36d210feb00a7621096af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68fbfd7923e36d210feb00a7621096af?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Mark Segal\"},\"description\":\"Mark founded ESG Today following a 20 year career in investment management and research. Prior to founding ESG Today, Mark worked at Delaney Capital Management (DCM) in Toronto, Canada, most recently as the firm\u2019s head of U.S. equities. While at DCM, Mark was part of the firm\u2019s ESG team, responsible for evaluating and tracking the sustainability factors impacting portfolio companies, and assessing the suitability of companies for portfolio inclusion. Mark also spent several years in the sell-side research industry, covering the technology and services sectors. Mark holds an MBA from Columbia University in New York, a BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, and is a CFA charterholder.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/author\/mo-segal9\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today","og_description":"Netherlands-based markets regulator the Dutch Authority for the Financial Markets (AFM) announced the release of a position paper on proposed reforms to the EU\u2019s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), including recommendations to remove the regulations\u2019 Article 8 and 9 classification categories in place of a new sustainable investment labeling regime, and to require all financial […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/","og_site_name":"ESG Today","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ESGToday\/","article_published_time":"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1014,"height":600,"url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/AFM-regulator.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Mark Segal","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@EsgToday","twitter_site":"@EsgToday","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Mark Segal","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/"},"author":{"name":"Mark Segal","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cca7a2b05e3a06d096e5740fb1433a01"},"headline":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products","datePublished":"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/"},"wordCount":530,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Investors","Regulators"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/","url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/","name":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products - ESG Today","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#website"},"datePublished":"2023-11-07T11:55:42+00:00","dateModified":"2023-11-07T16:41:33+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/dutch-regulator-proposes-scrapping-article-8-and-9-categories-for-investment-product-sustainability-labels\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Dutch Regulator Calls for Sustainability Impact Disclosures for all Financial Products"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/","name":"ESG Today","description":"ESG investing news, analysis, research and information","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#organization","name":"ESG Today","url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ESG-Today-Logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/ESG-Today-Logo.png","width":618,"height":350,"caption":"ESG Today"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ESGToday\/","https:\/\/twitter.com\/EsgToday","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/esg-today\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/cca7a2b05e3a06d096e5740fb1433a01","name":"Mark Segal","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68fbfd7923e36d210feb00a7621096af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/68fbfd7923e36d210feb00a7621096af?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Mark Segal"},"description":"Mark founded ESG Today following a 20 year career in investment management and research. Prior to founding ESG Today, Mark worked at Delaney Capital Management (DCM) in Toronto, Canada, most recently as the firm\u2019s head of U.S. equities. While at DCM, Mark was part of the firm\u2019s ESG team, responsible for evaluating and tracking the sustainability factors impacting portfolio companies, and assessing the suitability of companies for portfolio inclusion. Mark also spent several years in the sell-side research industry, covering the technology and services sectors. Mark holds an MBA from Columbia University in New York, a BBA from the Schulich School of Business at York University in Toronto, and is a CFA charterholder.","url":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/author\/mo-segal9\/"}]}},"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.esgtoday.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}