Assets in environmental, social and governance (ESG) exchange traded funds (ETFs) have risen by 96% to more than $3 billion since 2019.
According to BetaShares, ESG ETFs held $1.5 billion in assets in management in 2019 and by February 2021, this had risen to $3 billion, a rise of 97%. Since 2017, the figure had risen by more than 500% from $417 million.
In total, there were now 18 funds focused in this area with $3 billion in assets under management.
The largest provider of ESG ETFs was BetaShares which represented 75% of all assets followed by Russell and Vanguard.
Assets in the ETF universe had passed $97.3 billion after seeing $1.5 billion in net inflows during February.
Source: BetaShares
According to FE Analytics, those ESG ETFs which focused on international equities performed better than those which were concentrated on Australia.
Over one year to 28 February, the BetaShares Global Sustainability Leaders ETF and the Vanguard Ethically Conscious International Shares Index ETF had both seen positive performance of 21% and 10% respectively. The VanEck Vectors MSCI International Sustainable Equity ETF had seen smaller positive returns of 4%.
On the other hand, those focused on Australian equities had reported largely flat performance in comparison.
The BetaShares Australian Sustainability Leaders ETF returned 0.05%, VanEck Vectors MSCI Australian Sustainable Equity returned 1.8% while the Russell Australian Responsible Investment ETF lost 0.8%.
