French asset manager La Financière de l’Echiquier (LFDE) has launched its award winning Echiquier Climate & Biodiversity Impact Europe fund in Switzerland. The registration date was 1 April 2022.
The fund, launched in France in December 2020, was recognised by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) at the CDP Europe Awards in 2022, one of only 20 funds out of 17,000 to gain this recognition.
The product is designed to accelerate Europe's energy transition and safeguard biodiversity. Its investment process incorporates climate change and biodiversity issues, and addresses four of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): SDG 14 Life below water, and SDG 15 Life on land, both related to biodiversity; SDG 7 Affordable and clean energy, and SDG 11 Sustainable cities and communities. The fund complies with SFDR Article 9.
Managed by Adrien Bommelaer, Luc Olivier and Paul Merle, the fund aims to invest across all business sectors representative of the European economy, picking stocks that match 3 corporate profiles:
- Solutions: companies whose products and services help reduce their customers’ CO2 emissions
- Pioneers: companies with ambitious commitments and a systemic impact on their ecosystem
- Transition: companies embarking on their energy transition, which the portfolio management team supports and accelerates.
Regarding the fund, Mr Bommelaer, portfolio manager of Echiquier Climate & Biodiversity Impact Europe, said: “Unlike most traditional funds, it does not merely invest in companies providing solutions, but seeks to involve all economic participants in helping make the European continent carbon neutral and to support companies in making their transition.”
Alexandre Sauterel, country manager for Switzerland, adds: “Finance has a critical role to play in safeguarding biodiversity and meeting the climate challenge. This is a big issue: 50 percent of the world's GDP depends on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Echiquier Climate & Biodiversity Impact Europe takes a pragmatic approach to addressing this complex issue, which is intimately tied into the climate, and seeks to get every sector on board to help meet the challenge”
