Sustainable Fitch has warned that 9 percent of labelled bonds issued by EMEA and North American corporates could fall foul of the EU’s new guidelines on ESG terms in fund names, meaning they may have to be excluded by sustainable funds by spring next year.
The firm said the new rules, brought in by the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) in May, have the potential to disrupt the labelled bond market.
The rules require funds with ESG or sustainability-related terms in their name to implement exclusion screens in line with the EU’s Paris-aligned Benchmark (PAB) regulation. Transition funds will have to implement less stringent exclusion screens from the Climate Transition Benchmarks.
The PAB exclusions rules are mainly targeted at norms violations and exposure to coal, oil and gas production. However, the area of most concern for green bond investors is the exclusion of companies that derive more than 50 percent of revenue from electricity generation with an intensity of more than 100 grams of CO2 equivalent per kWh.
Fitch said that 87 of its 800 rated entities, representing $154 billion in ESG-labelled bond issuance, will fall foul of the rules. Two-thirds are emissions-intensive utilities. The remaining third have exposure to fossil fuel revenues.
While many of the excluded entities scored poorly on Fitch’s own environmental ratings, a third gained either its first or second-highest score.
The report’s authors warned that, while the new standards can help mitigate greenwashing risks, a “stringent application” of the exclusion rules “carries the risk to further constrict an already limited investment universe”.
“Imposing stricter criteria on holding labelled bonds or debt instruments because the issuers have higher carbon footprints, who arguably have the most pressing need to transition to greener practices, may prove highly disruptive and restrict capital towards greener activities,” they said.
Other market participants have warned of the potential impact on the labelled bond market, with industry bodies ICI Global and ICMA both cautioning against regulatory inconsistency.
FSA focus
Danish financial regulator the FSA has told regulated asset managers that ESG funds using “responsible” in their names will need to demonstrate impact across multiple sustainability areas.
In guidance published on Thursday, the FSA said it had observed a number of Danish funds using the term in their strategies, noting that ESMA had not included “responsible” in the list of key terms set out in its recent naming guidelines.
“The FSA assesses that the use of the word ‘responsible’ will initially fall under the ‘environmental and impact’ category, in line with the use of the abbreviations ‘ESG’ (environmental, social and governance) and ‘SRI’ (socially responsible investing), which appear in the list.”
The FSA said there was an “expectation” that the term “responsible” implies a “broader social responsibility, which can include several areas, including environmental matters, and thus not only the social or governance areas”.