Impact investing, which seeks both financial returns and philanthropic impact, is on the rise, and as a result, there is an increasing number of ways to align your personal values with your portfolio. Andy Hart, president and chief advisor of Delegate Advisors, recently spoke to ETF.com about the increasing prevalence of fixed-income exchange-traded funds that include environmental, social or governance criteria.
ETF.com reports that in the past several months, several fund issuers such as Nuveen, iShares and Sage Advisory have launched fixed-income ESG ETFs, finally offering financial advisors and their clients a way to apply ESG criteria to their whole portfolio.
What has held issuers back until now was a lack of robust data to create debt-focused ESG indexes and ETFs, says Martin Kremenstein, head of ETFs at Nuveen Investments.
Hart comments that he is pleased to see these funds launched and that he’s had at least one client express interest. “Before we invest,” he says, “we are in a “wait-and-see mode” to ensure the other core elements of underlying liquidity, quality and duration are a right fit for clients.”