Nuveen Launches First of its Kind U.S. Aggregate ESG Bond Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)

ESG Bond ETF Also Has No Mutual Fund Counterpart in the Sustainable Investing Sphere

At the beginning of October, Nuveen Fund Advisors, LLC, a unit of Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA), announced the launch of NuShares ESG U.S. Aggregate Bond ETF (NUBD), an index tracking exchange-traded fund that seeks to replicate the investment results of the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI US Aggregate ESG Select Index which, in turn, is derived from the Bloomberg Barclays US Aggregate Bond Index[1]. The fund, which is now listed on NYSE Arca, invests in a broad-based portfolio of US investment grade bonds that satisfy certain environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria while at the same time excluding various bonds of companies that are involved in controversial business activities. This is the first broad-based investment grade fixed income ESG oriented ETF within a still tiny universe of fixed income ESG oriented ETFs and one for which there is no mutual fund equivalent in the market today.