Less than 1% of total assets of French insurance sector exposed to coal industry

Written by Adam Cadle

03/11/2020

Less than 1% of total assets of the French insurance sector are exposed to the coal industry, a new report has revealed.

France’s stock market regulator, the AMF, and the country's Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority, the ACPR, have published their first report on the monitoring and evaluation of financial institutions’ coal policies, and found that 11 out of 17 sampled insurance companies announced effective dates for a thermal coal exit.

Among the 20 main French asset management companies, 16 also have a public coal policy and only one company has indicated that it does not wish to implement such a policy because of its line of business. However, only six sampled managers (belonging to four groups) have reported their coal exit date so far.

Following this first exercise, the ACPR and the AMF recommend that financial institutions: formulate coal policies, including notably the adoption of an exit date; justify the criteria and thresholds used in these policies and, if necessary, consider additional criteria in the policies to achieve the exit objective; increase the transparency of coal policies, in particular by clarifying applicable exemptions; clarify how financial institutions take into account companies that are in transition and/or with an intention or commitment to exit coal; improve individual monitoring of exposures and continue efforts at the level of the Paris financial centre in terms of harmonisation of methodologies; specify the data used for policy implementation and monitoring.

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