Gender Equality leading ESG investments

ETFs aligned to the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) number 5 – Gender Equality – led the flow receivers last week, having pulled in USD$155 million of investor money. Meanwhile, products aligned to SDG 13 – Climate Action – came in second with USD$143 million of new assets globally, followed by ETFs aligned to SDG 1 – No Poverty – with USD$39 million. All of the four ESG investing strategies, ‘General Integration,’ ‘ESG Thematic,’ ‘Best-In-Class,’ and ‘Exclusion Screening,’ managed to attract new investments.

Gender Equality and Climate Action  

Investors steered their capital into Gender Equality, the 5th Sustainable Development Goal (SDG), pushing it to become the flow leader among the 17 SDGs. ETFs aligned to this goal led the flow receivers last week, registering USD$155 million in net inflows. The trend appears to have been driven mostly by the big cash influx experienced by the UBS (Irl) ETF plc – Global Gender Equality UCITS ETF (GENE) having brought in USD$160 million of inflows over the week. 

ETFs investing in securities aligned to the 13th SDG, Climate Action, were the second most appealing to global investors last week. They attracted a total of USD$143 million of investor capital, a noticeable decrease from the previous week’s USD$500 million net inflows. 

Similarly, ETFs adopting the No Poverty theme – the 1st Sustainable Development Goal – remained as attractive as the previous week. The 4 ETFs aligned to SDG 1 brought in USD$39 million of net inflows, compared to the previous week’s cash inflows of USD$45 million. 

ETFs in play:

• Gender Equality ETFs
• Climate Action ETFs
• No Poverty ETFs 

General Integration and Exclusion Screening netted cash inflows

All four ESG investing strategies witnessed an influx of cash over the past week. Most notably ‘General Integration’ remained the most appealing to investors. The strategy attracted USD$840 million of investor capital, followed by ‘ESG Thematic’ with USD$139 million. ETFs adopting the ‘Best-In-Class’ and ‘Exclusion Screening’ ESG investment strategies came in third and fourth, having attracted USD$113 million and USD$90 million of assets, respectively. 

Europe, which manages the majority of ESG assets, appealed the most to global investors, with all ESG inflows over the week coming from the region, in contrast to the wave of selloffs from America and the APAC region. ETFs domiciled in Europe recorded a whopping USD$1.19 billion in net inflows, while ETFs in the APAC region and America shed USD$2 and USD$11 million of assets, respectively, over the last week.

ETFs in play:

• Best-In-Class ETFs
• ESG Thematic ETFs
• Exclusion Screening ETFs
• General Integration ETFs

Data for this article is as of July 8th, 2022.