SEC to Make Inroads Towards Regulating ‘Green’ Investments
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today released a new set of proposed rules to regulate marketing claims by environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment funds. The rules would enhance disclosure requirements for ESG funds, making them more transparent for investors. Rachel Curley, democracy advocate at Public Citizen, issued the following statement:
“In the current marketplace, retail investors don’t have a clear picture of what it means to invest in a fund whose marketing says it’s ‘sustainable,’ ‘green,’ or ‘ESG.’ The lack of transparency for investors makes it hard to untangle exactly how environmentally-friendly some of these products are. These rules begin to change the landscape around ‘green’ investments.
“The SEC’s new rules will help retirement savers understand what is in their portfolios and whether their investments will help them achieve their long-term financial and ethical goals. It’s great to see the SEC tackling these issues of long-term financial returns on multiple fronts – from the climate risk disclosure rule, to enforcement, to this new set of rules on fund portfolios.”