IPE ESG Briefing: Investor groups deliver feedback to SFDR overhaul plans

Things are getting hot when it comes to the European Commission’s plans to overhaul its rules for sustainability reporting by asset managers and asset owners.

Last week – although the feedback window has been extended again – major investor bodies published their positions on the Commission’s November proposal for the sustainable finance disclosures regulation (SFDR), highlighting significant concerns.

PensionsEurope, the European trade body for occupational pension funds, has described the potential revisions as “a structural misfit for IORPs” and called on legislators to give national governments discretion over how SFDR should apply to pension funds in their countries.

Pensioenfederatie, the Dutch pension body, also raised concerns about the compatibility of the planned SFDR framework with occupational schemes in the Netherlands, suggesting that pension funds should be allowed to communicate about specific portions of their portfolios.

EFAMA, meanwhile, expressed “serious concerns” about a plan to add explicit exclusions into the ‘transition’ and ‘sustainable’ categories, two of the three categories the Commission wants to introduce in a revised SFDR.

Staying with EU policy, the European Supervisory Authorities have all weighed in on the future of the bloc’s corporate-focused sustainability disclosure requirements. Their opinions relate to a proposal from EFRAG, a Commission advisory body, to pare back the European Sustainability Reporting Standards, which spell out how companies must disclose information under the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.

And last month, the European Commission launched a consultation on an overhaul of the Shareholder Rights Directive, with the EU executive saying the main aim of the plan to update the law is “to boost the competitiveness of EU-listed companies and simplify procedures for financial market participants”.

Away from the regulatory arena, NEST, the UK master trust, has become the latest pension fund to establish a ‘members’ assembly’ to guide its sustainability decisions. The group will seek to establish the values of NEST savers, and whether they could be better represented in investment strategies and decisions.

In the UK, campaign group ShareAction is calling for pension fund member AGMs, saying that schemes and their boards need to be “accountable in a meaningful way to the people whose money they invest”.

Items to note:

• IPE’s Transition Conference & Awards 2026 will take place on 22 April at The Hague.

Susanna Rust

ESG Editor