By Jim Henning,
Head of Sustainable Investment

When it comes to doing our washing, we all know it’s important to read the clothing labels to avoid any unfortunate mishaps (as well as trying to reduce the water consumption and temperature levels). Similarly, when it comes to sustainable investing, the risk of ‘greenwashing’ has been a persistent issue.

The ever-widening range of sustainable investment objectives, definitions and related solutions has led to misunderstandings, confusion and sometimes claims are being made that simply wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. This can lead to the unintended consequences of eroding trust in the financial services industry and lowering levels of capital flows into sustainable enterprises than would have otherwise been the case.

Global regulatory bodies have been busy trying to fix this problem by defining what exactly a sustainable investment means, thereby bringing more clarity, standardisation and raising standards. Greater transparency is vitally important but is an incredibly complex and technical task and remains very much work-in-progress.

It’s also interesting to note that the EU, US and UK regulators have chosen three definition categories, but predictably each have important differences in approach. Based on the recent FCA consultation paper ‘CP22/20 Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and Investment Labels’, the UK proposals look more aligned to the US than the EU scheme. In the latter case the EU’s SFDR was intended to be a disclosure regime only, while the FCA’s proposals introduce a labelling regime with three sustainable categories and new consumer‑facing summary disclosures.

Sustainability Disclosure Requirements – Proposed fund labels

*At least 70% of a ‘sustainable focus’ product’s assets must meet a credible standard of environmental and / or social sustainability, or align with a specified environmental and / or social sustainability theme. These products will typically be highly active and selective.

**These products will typically be highly selective, emphasising investment in assets that offer solutions to environmental or social problems and that align with a clearly specified theory of positive change.

Importantly, the new labels will also apply to discretionary managed portfolio services (MPS). For an MPS to qualify to use one of these labels, 90% of the total value of the underlying products in which it invests must meet the qualifying criteria for the same label. The DFM provider must then make the disclosures for each of the underlying products available to retail investors.

Choosing the right name for a product has always been important and often the subject of much internal debate within marketing departments. As it’s likely the first thing a retail investor is made aware of, the FCA intends to prohibit the use of sustainability related terms in either product names or marketing material for those products that do not qualify for a sustainable label. Examples of these terms would include ‘ESG’, ‘climate’, ‘impact’, ‘sustainable’ or ‘responsible’.

Following the consultation period, the final rules are due to be published by end of June 2023 and new labelling, naming and marketing restrictions will follow on 12 months later. The disclosure proposals in CP22/20 are far-reaching, covering all regulated funds to varying degrees, not just the labelled ones. They will require much more granular transparency and ongoing disclosures particularly surrounding investment objectives and policy, alongside progress reporting against published KPI’s.

There is no doubt that qualifying for a sustainable label will be a high bar to meet for many asset managers. In fact, based on the FCA’s own initial estimates, of those products that currently have sustainability-related terms in their names and marketing, two-thirds could decide to remove them accordingly.

Based on the 139 risk profiled multi-asset solutions currently in Dynamic Planner that have such terms in their names, it is interesting to see the differences across both funds and MPS’s. ‘Sustainable’ is by far the most favoured naming option across both wrapper types, but there is notably a greater proportion of more specialist ‘Impact’ and ‘Ethical’ offerings in the MPS space. For ethical screened funds, I suspect many are likely to elect one of the new labels, as sustainability has always been an important underpin to their philosophy and the preference of their traditional dark green investor base.


Over coming months, we can expect a raft of objective and fund name changes in light of the proposed regulations. At Dynamic Planner, we will ensure that relevant and objective sustainability research is available in the system, covering both products adopting the new labels and those which don’t. In the latter category, many will continue to actively apply ESG screens in their stock selection process and engage with investee companies (and also more widely across the asset management firm) from a fiduciary risk management perspective.

Thereby, users will be fully equipped to connect the recommended solutions to both risk and sustainability preferences via our Client Profiling process and meet the forthcoming Consumer Duty requirements.

Not a Dynamic Planner user? Schedule a free no-obligation demo with a business consultant and experience the full functionality of Dynamic Planner.