SEC’s proposal to enhance disclosures on ESG investment practices
The development and growth of Environmental, Social, and Governance investments have impacted several critical investor decisions. ESG issues are being factored into the decision-making process of investments as investors these days demand a socially responsible company to invest in.
In simple words, the Environmental, Social, and Corporate governance data disclose the company’s activities in these areas intending to improve transparency and attract investors whose values align with the company’s overall goal. Companies have also been restructuring their business models to incorporate more ESG practices into their core strategies.
SEC’s ESG-related Proposal
The Securities and the Exchange Commission proposed that certain investment advisors and investment companies need to provide additional information regarding their environmental, social, and governance investment practices. Currently, funds and registered investment advisers must disclose general information regarding ESG-related investment strategies, and any failure to do so violates Federal securities laws.
Thus, it becomes imperative to add specific disclosure requirements in fund registration statements, fund annual reports, and advisor brochures regarding ESG strategies. The additional disclosures of the ESG investment practices are designed to create a consistent, comparable, and reliable regulatory framework that will inform and protect investors.
Recommendations of the Proposal
1. It is proposed that any fund that describes itself as an ESG Focused Fund will be required to provide detailed information in a tabular format as a part of the disclosures. The disclosures are proposed to discuss how a company incorporates ESG factors into their investment selection process and their investment strategies.
The Integration funds that consider ESG factors as one of the many factors when it comes to investment selections are proposed to require a streamlined disclosure of what ESG factors are considered by the Fund along with how the ESG factors are incorporated into the investment selection process.
These amendments would apply to both open-end funds and closed-end funds that include one or more ESG factors in their investment selection process.
2. Tagging ESG disclosures using the Inline eXtensible Business Reporting Language (Inline XBRL) is greatly encouraged to improve transparency and reliability, which would assist investors in making an informed choice. This data language converts the ESG disclosures into machine-readable data that can be easily accessed and efficiently used by investors and market participants to decipher strategies about ESG in the companies they are looking to invest in.
3. It is also proposed that an Impact Fund be set up, which summarizes the growth and impact of the ESG strategies, both quantitatively and qualitatively. It needs to also discuss the key areas that affect the Fund’s ability to achieve the impact. These ESG Focused Funds must provide disclosures yearly in their annual reports.
4. ESG Focused Funds that consider Environmental Factors are proposed to require the disclosure of the emission metrics of 2 Greenhouse gasses. These disclosures can be made in the funds’ annual reports as per the proposal. These metrics can prevent exaggerated claims and help investors determine if the funds’ ESG goals and sustainability disclosures align with its reported metrics.
The enhanced ESG disclosures are only designed to make details of the ESG strategies of certain funds and their impact readily available and easily accessible to every investor out there. These enhanced disclosures are proposed to decipher the ESG strategies only to protect investors and capital.
The proposed amendments will require the funds and advisers to provide specific disclosures in fund prospectuses, annual reports, and brochures of the advisers. The disclosures can be emission metrics of greenhouse gasses by an ESG that considers Environmental factors or the description of the impact and the Fund’s progress in achieving an impact that a fund claims to create.
Inline XBRL tagging proposed to allow data aggregators to use automated systems to extract information and make sense of it is believed to impact investors and other market participants significantly.
iXBRL experts
It also makes reliable data easily accessible for analysis. DataTracks helps you prepare your compliance reports in XBRL and iXBRL formats, which can be filed with the SEC hassle-free. With the outsourced services of DataTracks to help you with your regulatory filing, you can save time, reduce risks and produce error-free, compliant reports.
