CFA urges clarity on UK, EU and US sustainable fund classification

Three ‘observable features’

The CFA Institute has called on policymakers from the UK, EU and US to adopt frameworks that improve the classification of ESG funds.

According to the CFA's How to Build a Better ESG Classification System report, the ESG frameworks put in place across the three regions present challenges due to lack of focus on observable features, as well as the presence of unclear definitions or incomplete logical structures. Chris Fidler, head of global industry standards at the CFA Institute, argued "there is much disagreement about how to categorically define and identify ‘ESG funds'", and added that a better way would be "to have different evaluators classify the same sets of funds" using "three observable features". The first...