News Releases Legal certainty following court ruling on Klimavest website

21.11.2024 3 Reading Time

klimaVest: A woman and a man are sitting opposite each other and talking.

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  • Changes already made to the advertising presentation

Commerz Real expressed its satisfaction with a recent decision by the Stuttgart District Court regarding advertising on the website of its impact fund Klimavest. In its judgement of 31 January 2022 (file number: 36O92/21KfH), the court responded to an action by the Baden-Württemberg Consumer Centre and prohibited, among other things, establishing a direct connection between a certain investment sum and a defined alleged reduction in the personal carbon dioxide (CO2) footprint. Moreover, it was not made clear enough that the greenhouse gas emissions actually avoided by the solar parks and wind farms in the fund portfolio can differ from the target.

“This has enabled us to achieve the legal certainty we were aiming for,” says Henning Koch, Chairman of the Commerz Real Management Board. “We had already made the corresponding changes to the website at the end of last year.” Thus, the originally established direct link between the investment in the fund and the personal carbon footprint (CO2) was removed and the avoidance objective and its conditions were presented more transparently and clearly.

In doing so, we have achieved the legal certainty we are aiming for. We had already made the corresponding changes to the website at the end of last year.
Tordesillas Solar Park, Spain

First non-cash impact fund for retail investors

With the Klimavest, Commerz Real launched the first impact fund for private investors in autumn 2020, which focuses on tangible assets. During its term of at least 50 years, it is expected to build a portfolio consisting of investments in renewable energy generation, sustainable infrastructure, mobility and forestry assets totalling at least 25 billion euros. Unlike conventional sustainability funds, Klimavest invests in such assets that make a measurable and thus verifiable contribution to reducing CO2 emissions. In addition, other strict sustainability parameters apply in accordance with the applicable EU Taxonomy Regulation. The fund management aims to achieve an annual return (using the BVI method) of between 3.0 and 4.0 percent. Investors can participate from 10,000 euros and receive regular reports on the climate impact achieved by the assets in the fund in addition to their performance. The rating agency Scope rated Klimavest with a preliminary rating of a+ (AIF Alternative Investment Funds) in 2021 August.

Objective: CO2 avoidance through feed-in priority of electricity from renewable energies

Klimavest promotes electricity generation from renewable energies. The feed-in priority of renewable energies in accordance with the German Renewable Energies Act means that electricity from renewable sources is used in the electricity grid as a priority. Each kilowatt-hour produced by renewable energies thus displaces a corresponding kilowatt-hour of electricity produced using fossil fuels. At European level, the feed-in priority is set out in the EU’s internal electricity market regulation. The klimavest aims to avoid at least 3.5 tonnes of CO2 per year per 10,000 euros invested in renewable energies (target value).

Impact measurement using internationally defined key figures

The avoidance measurement is based on internationally valid calculation methods. For example, the country-specific avoidance factor (tonnes of CO2 per megawatt hour) is calculated according to the Combined Margin Approach of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a globally recognised standard of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The factor is published by the Technical Working Group of International Financial Institutions (IFI). The CO2 emissions of the materials and the construction of the plants are also taken into account in the calculation.

About Commerz Real

Commerz Real is the asset manager for tangible asset investments of the Commerzbank Group and has 52 years of international experience in the market. More than 800 employees manage assets worth around 35,5 Billion Euro billion euros at the headquarters in Wiesbaden as well as at 17 other locations and branches in Germany and abroad.

Maurice Farrouh

Media contact

Focus on renewable energies

Maurice Farrouh