BlackRock has made a big push into the sustainable investing space, and the company gave that effort an extra shove with today’s launch of six iShares exchange-traded funds focused on environmental, social and governance investing.
Four of the funds comprise a suite of asset allocation products where all of their respective indexes track the same mix of five equity and fixed-income iShares ETFs with positive ESG characteristics, but in different configurations designed to provide either a conservative, moderate, growth or aggressive risk profile.
That lineup includes the following:
• iShares ESG Aware Conservative Allocation ETF (EAOK)
• iShares ESG Aware Moderate Allocation ETF (EAOM)
• iShares ESG Aware Growth Allocation ETF (EAOR)
• iShares ESG Aware Aggressive Allocation ETF (EAOA)
All four funds have a net expense ratio of 0.18%.
Meanwhile, the iShares ESG Advanced MSCI USA ETF (USXF) and iShares ESG Advanced MSCI EAFE ETF (DMXF) that debuted today track indexes containing companies with high ESG scores while employing screens that exclude controversial activities such as fossil fuels, palm oil, for-profit prisons and certain weapons.
The company notes that index screens are based on revenue or percentage of revenue thresholds for certain categories, and complete exclusions for other categories such as nuclear weapons. The indexes also exclude companies with an MSCI ESG Controversies Score lower than three based on a scale of zero to 10, with zero being the worst.
The USXF product has a net expense ratio of 0.10% and the DMXF fund charges 0.12%.
iShares plans to launch two other products in this ESG Advanced suite later this summer. A fund that targets U.S. dollar-denominated bonds is expected to roll out next week, while a fund targeting emerging markets is slated to begin trading in early September.
iShares said it has launched 22 ESG ETFs this year in the U.S., Canada and Europe.