STRAIGHT OFF THE COB
For a decade, Europe pretended fund disclosures were like the Avengers: different characters, same universe.
Now? SFDR 2.0 and UK SDR look like they were written from separate timelines.
Call it the multiverse of compliance madness.
Let’s break it down before someone tries to create a crossover event.
Let’s dive in.
SFDR 2.0
🚨 Brussels Finally Hits the “Rewrite the Plot” Button
The European Commission quietly admitted the Article 8/9 thing went full “Game of Thrones Season 8.”
Too many characters, too many promises, very little clarity.
Game of Corn
So SFDR 2.0 proposes a sweeping overhaul:
📌 The big moves
Scrap Article 8 and 9 labels (the market never agreed what they meant anyway).
Introduce new sustainability fund categories instead of quasi-official labels the EU never meant to create.
Simplify product templates to make disclosures readable without a legal dictionary.
Strip back entity-level disclosures that most firms were filing just to avoid an audit.
Improve comparability so investors can actually spot differences between “sustainable” products.
📌 The vibe
In short: less chaos, fewer PDFs, more usability.
This is the EU saying:
“Maybe simplification is good. Who knew?”
It’s not ideological — it’s a practical clean-up operation.
MEANWHILE IN THE UK
SDR Isn’t a Cleanup. It’s a Reboot.
While the EU is rewriting the rulebook, the UK basically walked out like it’s quitting a boyband to launch a solo career.
SDR (Sustainability Disclosure Requirements) isn’t SFDR with a missing F and British punctuation.
It’s a separate worldview:
📌 UK SDR’s core moves
New labels: Sustainable Focus, Improvers, Impact
Tough rules on claims, naming, and marketing
Governance requirements for sustainability oversight
Clear distribution obligations for labelled and unlabelled products
Expectations tied to Consumer Duty, not EU categorisation logic
📌 The vibe
SDR isn’t about simplifying sustainability.
It’s about owning the sustainability narrative.
If SFDR is trying to build consistency,
SDR is trying to build credibility — on UK terms.
SFDR is rewriting tracks;
SDR is dropping a solo album and aiming to crack the downloads chart.
DISCLOSURE SIMPLIFICATION
THEN the UK flips the table
Just when people finished arguing about SDR, the FCA said:
“Oh btw, we’re also rewriting the entire retail disclosure universe.”
That means:
PRIIPs: gone
UCITS KIID: retired
EU templates: put in the bin
A new UK-centric disclosure regime coming through the pipeline
Less prescriptive templates, more flexibility, clearer outcomes-based communication
Alignment with Consumer Duty’s “show your workings” culture
📌 The vibe
This is the regulatory version of Taylor Swift re-recording her albums.
Not because the originals were bad — but because ownership matters.
THE REAL STORY
Two Philosophies, Zero Convergence
Here’s the part nobody is saying out loud:
🇪🇺
EU SFDR 2.0
Simplify inside the existing system.
Reduce noise.
Improve comparability.
Move closer to what the market needs.
🇬🇧
UK SDR + Disclosure Overhaul
Replace the system entirely.
Build a domestic-first sustainability regime.
Cut the EU umbilical cord once and for all.
Prioritise Consumer Duty elevation over alignment.
These aren’t tweaks.
These are competing models of how retail fund disclosures should work.
So if you distribute across both?
You now need:
Two sustainability taxonomies
Two classification narratives
Two disclosure formats
Two compliance frameworks
Two sets of marketing guardrails
And one brave soul willing to explain this to a sales team at 8am
This isn’t just a compliance challenge.
It’s a storytelling challenge — and storytelling is what wins (or kills) distribution.
Otherwise you’ll end up corn-fused and your investors will be too.
The FundFlow Take
The EU is updating sustainability rules.
The UK is rebooting the franchise.
And everyone else is just hoping the crossover episode makes sense.
Managers who can harmonise their messaging across both worlds will win onboarding cycles.
Until next week!
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Creator: Tom Pilston | Credit: Tom Pilston