When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do: Disclosure Regulation and ESG Fund Management by Social and Conventional Banks

Richard Bofinger, Simon Cornée and Ariane Szafarz

No 24-003, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: In 2019, the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) introduced new transparency rules for the investment fund industry to combat greenwashing. This paper compares the sustainability performance of ESG funds marketed by social and conventional banks, before and after the SFDR came into force. Its contribution is twofold. First, the results suggest that the sustainability performance of ESG funds marketed by social banks was not affected by the SFDR. The intuition is that social banks are protected from greenwashing because sustainability and transparency are embedded in their founding principles. Second, and in contrast, the results suggest that the SFDR has successfully reduced greenwashing in the ESG funds of conventional banks.

Keywords: ESG; Investment funds; Social banks; Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR); Greenwashing; Transparency (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: G11 G18 G21 G38 K23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01-18
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban and nep-env
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