How to Avoid the Greenwashing Trap: RECOMMENDATIONS ON TRANSPARENCY AND MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR SUSTAINABLE INVESTMENT APPROACHES AND PRODUCTS

Investments in sustainable financial products are continuing to grow, but there can be discrepancies between clients’ expectations and the actual features of a product in relation to sustainability goals. The Asset Management Association Switzerland (AMAS) and Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF) are committed to ensuring the integrity of sustainable investment products and have therefore drafted recommendations for minimum requirements to help the asset management industry build investors’ trust in the Swiss financial center.

“The Recommendations on Minimum Requirements and Transparency for Sustainable Investment Approaches and Products”, drafted jointly by SSF and AMAS, follow on from the Key Messages and Recommendations for Sustainable Asset Management published in 2020 and represent a further effort to reconcile the interests and goals of asset managers, other financial service providers, and end investors in the context of sustainable investment products on the Swiss market.

The recommendations are focused on sustainable products developed by the fund and asset management industry and sold to investors by financial service providers. They have three main aims:

• to define the various sustainable investment approaches more precisely and set minimum requirements for implementing each of them;
• to set minimum requirements for informing investors about the various investment approaches and instruments;
• and to explain which sustainable investment approaches are best suited to meeting investors’ different objectives.