Social justice is very much on the front burner these days and will likely remain so going forward, and in that spirit comes today’s announcement that a social justice-centric exchange-traded fund has been filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Adasina Social Justice All Cap Global ETF (JSTC) is based on social justice investment criteria created by Adasina Social Capital, an investment and financial activism firm that launched in August.

Adasina is the sister company of Robasciotti & Philipson, a registered investment advisory firm in San Francisco that was founded in 2004 and whose forte is creating social justice portfolios for clients. Both companies are majority-owned and operated by women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Both the JSTC fund and Adasina are offshoots of an investment platform developed by Robasciotti & Philipson.

“Three years ago we created an impact investing platform called RISE, which stood for Return on Investment and Social Equity,” said Rachel Robasciotti, founder and CEO of Adasina Social Capital. “That platform was so popular that it bears spinning it off and creating its own company.”

She noted that Robasciotti & Philipson is more of a wealth management firm, while Adasina is more of a financial products company specifically focused on ESG and impact investing. The ETF, which is expected to begin trading later this quarter, is seen as a way to expand the sister companies’ social justice mission to a wider audience.

According to the prospectus, JSTC will be actively managed. But that has more to do with the human input involved in creating the fund’s underlying Adasina Social Justice Index. This ETF essentially will closely track and mirror the index holdings. 

The index is described as a data-driven set of standards that guides investment selection to reflect social justice values and support progressive movements for change. Adasina says the index's investment criteria was developed with input from social justice organizations and activists in communities impacted by various forms of social injustice.

The index places strong emphasis on racial justice, gender justice, economic justice and climate justice. Its social activism approach incorporates a significant number of exclusionary screens that preclude investing in companies that Adasina believes don’t advance its four main justice themes. In addition, the index excludes companies involved in a range of activities including providing disproportionate funding to the Republican National Committee, having poor animal welfare practices, producing tobacco products, or making or selling military weapons or civilian firearms.

The fund was developed in partnership with Tidal ETF Services LLC, and its fee structure hasn't been announced.