The asset manager HQ Trust (HQ for Harald Quandt) brings facts into the discussion about the misuse of reporting sustainable investments (greenwashing) in the financial sector.

Capital market analyst and fund manager Jan Tachtler examined all green funds licensed for sale in Germany under Article 9 of the EU regulation.

Article 9 funds are expected to have a positive impact in terms of sustainability and are therefore sometimes referred to as dark green.

Daniel Mohr

Editor in Business.

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Funds are obliged to regularly publish their ten largest holdings.

Data were available for 312 of the 399 Article 9 funds as of the end of September.

The Microsoft share can be found most frequently in the dark green funds among the ten most important holdings.

It is in 71 funds.

The average weight of 4.5 percent means the top position for the technology company.

The French power and energy technology company Schneider Electric came in second, followed by the Danish pharmaceutical group Novo Nordisk and the Dutch chip manufacturer ASML.

The Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche and the e-car manufacturer Tesla are also frequently represented.

Anyone expecting specialized solar or wind power companies to be the heavyweights will be disappointed.

The methodology means that large corporations in particular appear among the most frequently mentioned items, as they are usually highly weighted in funds and are therefore among the ten largest positions.

So it could be that lower weighted smaller companies are more common than Microsoft.

This can only be brought to light retrospectively by evaluating the annual reports of the fund companies, which are often available with a certain time lag.

However, the survey can refute another allegation.

Green funds are often said to be indistinguishable from classic funds and to take the heavyweights of the stock market world into their funds relatively indiscriminately.

However, a comparison with the most valuable companies in the world shows that the managers of the green funds evidently bring their own signature to the funds and do not or only rarely have other heavyweights in the stock market world in their funds.

As the most valuable company in the world, Apple does not appear in the top ten, nor does Amazon or Alphabet.

HQ Trust also carried out an evaluation of 250 themed funds in the summer.

There were larger overlaps with the funds declared as green.

Six of the most common ten public companies were identical.

In addition to Microsoft and Schneider Electric also United Health, Danaher, Thermo Fisher and Waste Management.

The solar companies Enphase Energy from America and Solar Edge from Israel also appeared at the top of the theme funds.

German companies do not play a major role in either green funds or theme funds.