Luxembourg’s latest public holiday ‘Europe Day’ will be on Monday 9 May 2022.

Time to look at the languages spoken in Europe. 

• Over 200 different languages are spoken in Europe 
• The EU has 24 official languages 
• Most Europeans speak a Romance, Germanic or Slavic language 
• Basque, Greek, Lithuanian and Icelandic are among the oldest languages in Europe and the world 
• Some languages are only spoken by a small group of people like: Faroese, Cornish or Sorbian 

Find out more about Prisma and our translation services!

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” (Oscar Wilde)

It is always better to live your life in your own way even if it is not perfect, instead of worrying about the expectations that others have of you.

For us at Prisma this means providing high-quality services, and being a trustworthy partner for all our financial communication needs.

We value respect, flexibility, integrity and reliability.

We love to see you grow. Below you will find our Prisma Growth Strategies for the month of March:

The Eisenhower matrix

An old, but very effective time management tool.
All you have to do is categorise your task on your to do list.

Is it Urgent and Important? – Do it now.
Is it Not Urgent and Important? – Schedule time for the task.
Is it Not Important and urgent? – Delegate the task.
Is it Not Important and Not Urgent? – Remove the task from you current to do list.

Do you need help with project management? Contact us to find out how we can help

Ambient sounds

Can you focus on your tasks with ambient sounds?

Have you heard about ambient sounds, white noise or focus music? They can help foster your concentration when working or studying.

The sound of music vs the sound of silence. What do you prefer?

The Walt Disney method

Did you know you can improve creative thinking for yourself and co-workers? The Walt Disney method is all about different perspectives.

Step 1 – The Dreamer
Generate the greatest, most absurd ideas you can think of. No filters or negativities are allowed.

Step 2 – The Realist
Look at your ideas from step 1. Think about how your visions can become a reality

Step 3 – The Critic
Now it is time to possibly be a pessimist. You need to evaluate how feasible your ideas are; and list what could go wrong when implementing the ideas.

If you want to go all the way with this method, change rooms for each step. Choose the nicest room for the dreamer phase.

Stay tuned for more growth strategies by Prisma!

2022 will bring many changes to our industry and the related fund documentation.

We are always happy to assist you in all challenges ahead. In order to provide the best possible service to you, it would be helpful for us if you could complete our survey:

If you had 3 wishes that would make your life easier when it comes to ESG/SFDR, what would these be? (multiple answers possible)

• Full support to produce your fund documentation
• Automating updates to reduce delivery times
• Automating updates to improve consistency
• Coordination & communication support between different teams

What are your biggest challenges? (multiple answers possible)

• Filing deadlines
• Volume of updates
• Managing multiple updates
• Keeping updates consistent (across various documents)
• Internal communication between teams/ involved parties
• Translation & integration of updated fund documentation
• Layout

For which documents would you need assistance? (multiple answers possible)

• Prospectus
• Annual and semi-annual reports
• UCITS KIIDs
• PRIIP KIDs
• Factsheets
• Website updates
• Regulatory forms
• Shareholder mailings
• Marketing and sales documents (presentations, brochures, etc. …)

Tell us more about your SFDR requirements in the comments. If you would like you can also fill out our survey here; and send it to prisma(at)prisma.lu. We thank you for your time!

Introduction

The EU has introduced the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) in 2019,appliying to financial market participants (FMP), such as asset managers, banks, financial advisors. The first level has come into effect on 10 March 2021 and will continue rolling out deadlines for disclosures that are required by FMPs. This regulation is focused within Europe but is being adopted by other countries around the globe. Its aim is to assist European commitments on climate control and Sustainability objectives,  encouraging investors to chase greener opportunities which  do no harm to the ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance).

SFDR Purpose

The purpose of the SFDR is to reorientate FMPs capital towards more sustainable investments. It’s also designed to ensure that all disclosures are transparent, easy to understand and clearly show the sustainability characteristics of their products, by doing this they can also counter greenwashing.

Greenwashing is the process of providing misleading information on how sustainably friendly a company’s products are. Often rebranding or repackaging, saying recycled materials are used, exaggerating this fact when only 5% of their material may be recycled would be some examples of green washing. With the SFDR requiring a paper trail of sources and evidence, they hope to eliminate this misleading information.

SFDR Scope Impacted Funds / Companies

The SFDR applies to FMPs, these are defined as investment firms such as asset managers. The financial products they offer include mutual funds, insurance-based investment products, private pensions among others..

SFDR is applicable to Alternative Investment Fund (AIF), portfolio managed services or Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) funds which are subject to be classified as article 6, 8 or 9 products to clearly show how sustainable a fund is.

• Article 6
  • Covers funds which do not have any sustainable investments and could involve stocks excluded by the ESG.
• Article 8 (Light Green)
  • Covers products that promote ‘E’ or ‘S’ whether or not the investment is made out of ESG components, or the product was not made to have an impact on the environment or society.
• Article 9 (Dark Green)
  • The objective is to specifically impact ‘E’, ‘S’ or ‘G’, and the majority of the components are usually ESG investments.

What do you need to do? Timeline and Documents to be updated

• 10 March 2021
  • (Level 1) SFDR comes into effect, requiring FMPs to disclose SFDR related information at an entity level (i.e, if they comply or explain why they don’t).
• 1 January 2022
  • The first Taxonomy Alignment (Level 1) comes into effect, requiring additional disclosures on climate change. The Taxonomy Alignment is a guiding force to assist SFDR in identifying ‘green’ products.
• 1 January 2023
  • Regulator Technical Standards Final Draft (Level 2) comes into effect. The Regulatory Technical Standard is a guidebook on how to comply with SFDR, defining terms and deadlines for all those it applies to.
  • Second Reference Period (Level 2) – Second Taxonomy Alignment comes into effect, requiring additional disclosures on environmental funds. PAI disclosures at entity level and annual reporting on PAI to begin.
• 30 June 2023
  • Firms that consider PAI must publish annual PAI statements (Level 2) on First Reference Period by 30 June each year on the most recent reference period.

Taxonomy Regulation

The Taxonomy Regulation is a helping force assisting the SFDR in identifying ‘green’ products. It requires additional information on the objectives set out in the SFDR. The first two objectives lie under the climate category, climate change mitigation and climate change adaption. These are considered our first Taxonomy Alignment which is due the 1 of January 2022. We also have the following four objectives:

• the sustainable use and protection of water and marine resources;

• the transition to a circular economy;

• pollution prevention and control;

• the protection and restoration of biodiversity and ecosystems.

These are considered our Second Taxonomy alignment which is due 1 January 2023. During the Taxonomy Alignments, all taxonomy related disclosures will need to be updated with this additional information.

ESG and Sustainable Finance; and the role of Europe

Europe has a large role to play here, becoming the world leader in sustainable investments and working toward a greener more sustainable future. We can already see other countries adopting the European SFDR into their strategies or using the EU SFDR as basis for their national legal frameworks such as the UK.

Non-EU investment firms are also in scope of SFDR if they have any products that are marketed in the EU, meaning non-EU firms will be required to make disclosures at the same level.

Pitfalls, things to look out for

SFDR has several pitfalls though, which we should all look out for, given that it’s still in the very early days of development and adoption. Without an industry standard of rating/scoring, inconsistency is a common issue throughout FMPs. A company can have two entirely different ESG ratings from two data providers, as currently this is down to the ESG focus of the one rating.

Data gathering is another issue, putting aside the large quantities and inconsistent data, some investee companies are not yet required to disclose certain ESG related data until later dates, although others are required to release disclosures on this data very soon which leaves a data gap.

As SFDR is still a very early life stage, one can expect through experience and learning, once a higher level of maturity has been reached, that these pitfalls will become non-issues within the next few years.

What can Prisma do

At Prisma, we can help produce and update your documentation in a professional typeset layout, as well as translating these documents into all Western, European and Asian languages.

Worried about distribution of this information across the many platforms? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered there, too. We offer physical and digital mailing distribution and can also create websites to display your disclosures. Find out how we can help today at https://www.prisma.lu/our-services/ or contact us at https://www.prisma.lu/contact/.

Congratulations, you made it! In 80 questions around the world, you learnt a lot about our planet, as well as the people and animals on it.

Attention – Spoilers Ahead: Do not keep reading, if you have not yet completed part 4!

Here are the correct answers from Part FOUR

Nepal’s national flag is the only non-rectangular flag.

We were looking for Croatia.

The border between Lux and Germany is formed by 3 rivers, The Moselle, the Sauer and the Our.

Ninja is the Chihuahua.

The Great Barrier Reef is home to the world’s most unique creatures, where the smallest one is a 7 millimetres Fish while the biggest inhabitant is a 12 meters whale shark.

The Balalaika is a Russian stringed instrument with a triangular body.

Gjon’s Tears was third placed on this year’s Eurovision Song Contest?

Who am I?

I began life as a small village known as Edo, a small fishing village around 3,000 B.C. in 1890 is when I was given my current name.
The cherry blossom is my national symbol, the trees flower a beautiful pink for two weeks, this is known as Hanami.
I am considered the largest metropolitan in the world, hosting over 36 million people.
My subway is one of the busiest in the world, although only hosting 9 lines of subways, nearly 7 million people use them daily.
I am: Tokyo

Bucharest (capital of Romania) and Lima (capital of Peru) are both the capital city of their respective state.

Bob Marley is from Nine Mile, Jamaica.

Complete the saying “Once bitten, twice shy.

Different from its name, the colour of the Golden Gate Bridge is called “international orange” and is classified as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World:

In the famous Christmas film, the little Lord’s name is Fauntleroy.

Slovenia has the EU presidency from July – December 2021.

Rami Malek portraits the villain “Safin” in the latest Bond movie “No time to die”.

A flock of flamingos is called a flamboyance.

Sun, wind, water, and biomass are renewable energy sources.

Heart of Darkness is a novel by Joseph Conrad

Thank you for participating in our quiz!

The final part for our Worldwide Prisma Quiz is now available! We hope you’ve enjoyed taking part as much as we have enjoyed creating this for you. The winners will be announced next week.

Click here to start the quiz

Congratulations, you also mastered Part THREE of The Worldwide Prisma Quiz and travelled through different cultures, traditions and fun facts with us.

Attention – Spoilers Ahead: Do not keep reading, if you have not yet completed part 3!

Here are the correct answers from Part THREE

The film Casablanca, with Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, was shot in Burbank, California.

Liechtenstein and Haiti developed identical national flags independently of each other without realising it until they competed against each other in the 1936 Summer Olympics under the same flag.

We were looking for Spain.

The 2014 winter olympics took place in Russia (Sochi).

We were looking for a Beagle.

The Great Wall of China has a total length of 21196.18 km and got built over hundreds of years. In 1987, this landmark was added to the World Heritage List by UNESCO.

The local currency in Liechtenstein is Swiss Franks (CHF).

Beijing isconsidered one of the oldest cities in the world. Its history dates back around 3000 years, it is 6 times as old as New York and 10 times as old as Sydney. Beijing is famous for its Calligraphy, the literal meaning of calligraphy is beautiful writing. The city was visited in the early 13^th century by an Italian explorer of the name of Marco Polo, his notes are the earliest on record from western civilization. Beijing has changed name 15 times, some of its previous names have been Zhongdu meaning Central Capital, Dadu meaning Great Capital and Beiping meaning Central Peace.

Rome was founded in roughly 753 BC, although it only became the capital in 1871! It is home to more than 2 thousand fountains, most of which are quite small but provide free drinking water to all its residents. The first shopping mall in the world was built here in 110 AD. It was named Trajan’s Market and was built by a Greek engineer.

Do you know enough to become the Worldwide Quiz Champion?

Manufacturers use Barium salts to produce green sparks in fireworks.

There are only 2 countries in the world whose official flags contain (a small amount of) pink in them. One is Mexico, the other one is Spain.

The singer Elvis Presley is from Mississippi, United States.

A stunning natural phenomenon, also called “Cotton Castle” is used as a Spa and includes around 17 hot spring terraces (water temperature is around 36°C) in Pamukkale, Turkey.

Eric Carle wrote a children’s book about The very hungry caterpillar.

“Revenge is a dish best served cold” is a line from the movie “The Godfather“.

The first single released by Adele was “Chasing Pavements“.

A Luxembourgish “Kaweechelchen” is a squirrel.

There are 11 time zones in Russia.

The daffodil is the national flower of Wales.

The kangaroo is the national animal of Australia.

We hope you enjoyed part one and two of the Worldwide Prisma Quiz! What did you learn during your travels so far? The Worldwide Prisma Quiz Part THREE is out now!

Click here to start the quiz!

Congratulations, we are at our half-way point in 80 questions around the world. You completed The Worldwide Prisma Quiz Part TWO and discovered even more about cultures, traditions, and fun facts

Attention – Spoilers Ahead: Do not keep reading, if you have not yet completed part 2!

Here are the correct answers from Part TWO

Arnhem Land is the home of the Didgeridoo.

Sinhalese is spoken in Sri Lanka. Cinnamon is native to the country.

Vladivostok is Russia’s largest port city on the Pacific Ocean?

List, on the island Sylt is most northern point of Germany.

The river Potomac flows through Washington D.C.?

The sculpture of this gold-plated female figure on a stone pillar, is called Claus Cito. The nickname of this Golden Lady is Gëlle Fra.

The first Olympic flag went missing for 77 years after the 1920 games until a 1920 olympian found it back in his old suitcase.

We were looking for New Zealand.

Victor Hugo visited Luxembourg between 1862 and 1871. He did much to promote this place, with his poetry and sketches. He lived in Vianden.

SA played against Mexico in the opening game of the FIFA World Cup 2010 in Johannesburg.

We were looking for the Shiba Inu.

The Eiffel Tower in Paris took 2 years, 2 months and 5 days to build this construction, made of 7.500 tons of iron and was initially designed as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair.

Celine Dion represented Switzerland when she won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1988.

Who am I:

I have grown from a 10th-century fortress town founded by a descendant of Charlemagne into a metropolis of more than one million inhabitants.
Since the end of the Second World War, I have been a main centre for international politics.
I am hosting the headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
Although historically Dutch-speaking, I became increasingly French-speaking over the 19th and 20th centuries.
I am: Brussels

There was a great fire that devastated me in 1666 that left large parts of the city in ruins, although only 6 people were verified to have died in the fire.
I have been home to many famous faces, including but not limited to: Charles Darwin, Jimi Hendrix, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Florence Nightingale.
From my giant eye I can spy many monuments, such as an iconic bell tower with a familiar name.
You may know my notorious serial killer that dwelled the dark streets in the 19th Century, he was never caught. Jack the Ripper.
I am: London

Raven, a member of the DC superhero group ‘The Titans’ does not wear or is green. Her super-outfit is black and purple.

Gin is the main component for the classic 1930s-40s Pink Lady Cocktail.

Tom Jones is from Pontypridd, Wales.

Phileas Fogg and Passepartout set off east from London to travel ‘In 80 days around the world’.

Roger Federer won Wimbledon most often.