A reader has a portfolio with a few individual stocks, several funds and a savings plan on an equity fund.
His house bank now recommends that he switch to "sustainable paper".
That sounds good at first.
But should be consumed with the utmost caution.
To do this, it would first have to be defined what sustainability actually means when it comes to investments.
Is this a Nordex share whose company manufactures wind turbines, or is it precisely because the wind turbines shred animals and destroy the landscape?
Is it the share of Electricité de France, a company that operates a large number of nuclear power plants and thus produces electricity in a very CO2-friendly manner, or is it precisely because a lot of highly radioactive waste is generated for centuries?
Daniel Mohr
Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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The EU is currently trying to define sustainability for the financial sector and has already produced hundreds of pages of regulations that are intended to provide guidance on the subject of environmental protection.
Controversial topics such as nuclear power were initially outsourced to working groups.
An agreement is not in sight.
So if a bank wants to make its portfolio "sustainable", it first wants to get it moving and earn money with it.
So if you are satisfied with your current portfolio and have selected stocks and funds according to your taste, you shouldn't let the suggestion put you off and put it aside.
You can kindly listen to the specific suggestions and find out what the bank means by “sustainable investments”.
If it's just more expensive green-named funds, no one has won anything.
The industry still has a long way to go to make it really transparent why Bayer should now be more sustainable than BASF or vice versa.
So far there is still a lot of hot marketing air hidden behind the keyword.