The Fund should focus on a few relevant criteria

Green funds lack personality. The message has not really been pleased to green asset managers, gathered Friday last Symposium on green investment organized by the centre for research of the Edhec in Nice. This is yet the realization that Noël Amenc, Director of the centre: "our studies show that green funds have a little higher in socially responsible investment (Sri) performance." But overall, neither is able to dominate the traditional funds. They has not been better protected against the crisis nor.

For the researcher, the design of the portfolio is in issue. "The data show that these investments are even not influenced by the price of oil." Yet, such products may be of interest petroleum countries, for example to balance their exposure. Managers take too many criteria into account, some mix the artistic patronage with the male-female parity and carbon emissions. The Fund should focus on a few relevant criteria. "Catherine Adibi, Rothschild Managing Director, agrees:"we already have Sri funds, but we are trying to type them more."

If they fail to distinguish themselves financially, these placements also appear to err on the side in their ethical allegations. A study of the association friends of the Earth analyzed the composition of the 89 funds having won the label of the Novethic agency in 2009. All contain at least one large group in the Top 15 of the most controversial enterprises of the association. Prior to the disaster in the Gulf of the Mexico, BP was also in some European Sri Fund. Friends of the Earth are the poverty of the extrafinancière information provided by businesses and the lack of verification by the rating agencies. "There is a glaring gap between the practices that we see on the ground and the ratings," judge Juliette Renaud, responsible for the campaign on the responsibility of financial actors.

The lack of reliability of the products has not escaped to investors. It is even the main criticism that they make them, to read the survey unveiled by researchers at the Edhec in Nice. The questionnaire sent to general European investors 100 reports that more than 60 of them incriminate the immaturity of the market, in particular the reliability of ratings of assets. 37 say they buy products ISR because they "do not believe the statements of financial institutions concerning these products" and 33 because that "there is no independent verification of the statements made on these products."

The challenge is much greater that the survey confirms the enthusiasm for these products measured for years and which is accelerated through the crisis. More than 86 of the respondents say that the protection of the environment is a theme of investment for them and 90 of them are investing more in these investments in the next three years.

The fight against the greenhouse effect comes largely at the top of their subjects of concerns, prior to the issue of water and pollution. Less media topics such as energy efficiency or deforestation are rather underestimated. Investors also share a wide variety of motives, the research of image to the reduction of the risks and financial performance. But the first factor is a personal ethical commitment.

For more widely, green investment will have to make progress on the two tables of the financial performance and reliability. The dynamism of institutional investors in green real estate proves that, when environmental performance are clear and the product typed, they follow. In non-coté, there is a comparable lucidity of venture capital: President Emertec, Bernard Maître, recalled that environmental technologies are already 15 of the investments and that they continue to grow over the computer, electronics and biotechnology, industries that it considers "too ripe". Paths of progress emerge already. Some managers have the carbon weight of their products and some rating agencies obtain funding clients to perform audits on site.