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Finance

Sustainability-related disclosure in the financial services sector

How financial market participants and financial advisers have to communicate sustainability information to investors.

What the EU is doing and why

The EU has put in place a transparency framework, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). By setting out how financial market participants have to disclose sustainability information, it helps those investors who seek to put their money into companies and projects supporting sustainability objectives to make informed choices. The SFDR is also designed to allow investors to properly assess how sustainability risks are integrated in the investment decision process. In this way, the SFDR contributes to one of the EU’s big political objectives: attracting private funding to help Europe make the shift to a net-zero economy.

The European Commission is currently carrying out a comprehensive assessment of the framework, looking at issues such as legal certainty, usability and how the Regulation can play its part in tackling green-washing.

Policy making timeline

  1. 14 September 2023
    Consultation - SFDR
  2. 17 February 2023
    Legislation

    Publication of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/363 of 31 October 2022 amending and correcting the regulatory technical standards laid down in Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/1288 as regards the content and presentation of information in relation to disclosures in pre-contractual documents and periodic reports for financial products investing in environmentally sustainable economic activities.

    The requirements started to apply on 20 February 2023.

    These amendments require financial market participants to disclose the extent to which their portfolios are exposed to gas and nuclear-related activities that comply with the Taxonomy, as set out in the Complementary Climate Delegated Act (CDA).

    For the convenience of financial market participants preparing the financial product disclosures under the SFDR the three European Supervisory Authorities (EBA, EIOPA and ESMA) provide an editable word version of the templates on their website.

  3. 25 July 2022
    Legislation

    Publication of Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2022/1288 of 6 April 2022 containing technical standards to be used by financial market participants when disclosing sustainability-related information under the Sustainable Finance Disclosures Regulation (SFDR).

    The requirements started to apply on 1 January 2023.

    This Delegated Regulation specifies the exact content, methodology and presentation of the information to be disclosed, thereby improving its quality and comparability.

    A corrigendum to this Delegated Regulation was published on 27 December 2022.

  4. 10 March 2021
    Legislation

    The Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation comes into application.

  5. 8 March 2018
    Action plan - Sustainable finance

    Renewed sustainable finance strategy and implementation of the action plan on financing sustainable growth, with action 9 being to strengthen sustainability disclosure and accounting rule-making.

Relevant legislation