Cette stratégie consiste à sélectionner les meilleurs actions et obligations de chaque secteur d’activité, tout en respectant la répartition « standard » de l’économie. On comprend donc que cette typologie de fonds ne se refuse pas d’investir dans des secteurs polluants ou peu vertueux pour la société.

SRI funds are “classic” OPCs (Collective Investment Vehicles) that have received the “SRI” label, thanks to their stock selection process. This label is awarded by a certification body which carries out a detailed analysis of the funds.

These funds are accessible through “Assurance-Vie” contracts, a PEA, a retirement savings contract or via any securities account.

This market is growing enormously with a product offer that is constantly enriched.

What makes SRI funds different from traditional funds?

• The fund management companies select companies with extra-financial objectives (sustainable development)

• SRI funds are labeled by a certifying body

• The importance of certain SRI funds in companies allows them to orient managers’ decisions towards ESG standards

There are several strategies within the SRI label:

• Best in Class (represents 84% ​​of SRI funds): This strategy consists in selecting the best stocks & bonds from each sector, while respecting the distribution of the global economy. Hence, this “Best in class” method will not exclude polluting or unethical sectors, but only select the best players from these less virtuous economic sectors.

• Best in Universe (11% of SRI funds): these funds aim to select the best issuers regardless of their economic sector. The weight of stocks & bonds may diverge greatly from the gloabl economy, since funds linked to the petroleum, chemical, armaments, and other heavy industries will be less represented, if not excluded.

• Thematic (4% of SRI funds): this type of fund aims to focus their strategies on a specific theme such as the environment, social impact, etc.

• By Exclusion (1% of SRI funds): these funds do not invest in companies which have harmful behavior for the environment and for humans (tobacco, armaments, GMOs, nuclear, corruption, discrimination, child labor, etc. .). It is this category that seems to address the demand of the public, and it is the least represented within the SRI label !

We can therefore see that, depending on the strategy, large companies such as Total, Sanofi, Volkswagen or Ryan Air are part of the composition of certain SRI funds, notably best in class.

What about the performance?

According to modern financial theories, one of the primary objectives of investors is to maximize the profitability of their investments while reducing risk taking. This goal is generally achieved through the diversification of investment vehicles.

Because SRI funds exclude securities from their selection, investment opportunities are reduced. We could therefore imagine that this asset class could offer less optimization of the risk / return ratio.

However, others may argue that taking into account extra-financial factors such as social, environmental and governance criteria are virtuous in the long term, since they integrate an overall performance strategy, synonymous with sustainability.

Quantitative studies shed light on this point: to date, the analysis of the performance of SRI funds shows a slight outperformance compared to their benchmarks.

However, the same studies highlight the fact that too strict of a selection leads to a negative impact on the level of its financial performance.

Note: the studies’ results differ greatly according to the investment horizons, and more specifically depending on the different economic cycles.