Sustainability of investments: efforts still to be made

As said Pierre Filippi, President of the asset management company Fideas Capital, at the conference, "the climate issue has become a serious and urgent issue today". This is why finance in its role of capital allocation must support and encourage the transition to a carbon-neutral economy. However, investors are still struggling "to sacrifice short-term performance, even in favor of its sustainability, as well as to suddenly restructure their portfolios or to define their ESG policy" he says.

Investor interest in Green bonds

However, a Climate Responsible Investment policy is the key to gradually mobilize investors and influence issuers. In this regard, Etienne Oberthür, Head of Financing and Treasury of the Société du Grand Paris and AFTE treasurer, referring to issues relating to green and responsible finance, recalls the need to "redirect capital flows towards sustainable investments to achieve sustainable and inclusive growth". In this environment, the green bond market clearly has a role to play, as shown by their outstandings, which have risen sharply in the world.

Develop new products

But, in order to truly accelerate the transition to the zero carbon footprint, "it is necessary to go further, with a focus on equities, that is, the capital of companies, which must then respond to specific commitments on their entire policy” according to Pierre Filippi.

The idea is simple: if we want to be effective, we must push all the companies to progress, so we should not exclude any sector, but choose in each of them those which take the best environmental practices.

If these practices are followed and if negligent companies are sidelined by the fund managers, they would be encouraged to progress.

To do this, it is important to drain the savings of individuals via "open OPCVM which remain the best way to spread it" for Pierre Filippi. However, according to him, "the supply of climate-focused funds, especially on the equity markets, is still very small, even if we see an acceleration in their growth, with an offer in the support for the mainstream transition (in the sense of the Climate Transition Benchmark) which remains to be established”.

Moreover, to accelerate the transition of brown economy actors, he also advocates the launch of new financial tools, especially on the side of derivatives, around the concept of climate risk coverage.