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Sustainable Investing Monitor-July 2023

  New Fund Launches The number of new sustainable fund launches, including mutual funds and ETFs in the first six months of 2023 reached 59, exceeding the 40 funds launched last year, or an increase of 48%. These included 35 new mutual funds and 24 ETFs. Net Assets:  Mutual Funds and ETFs Sustainable fund assets…

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The Bottom Line:  New sustainable fund listings ticked up as well as green and social bonds and fund net assets while relative performance results lagged.  

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The Bottom Line:  New sustainable fund listings ticked up as did green and social bonds as well as net assets while relative performance results lagged.

 

New Fund Launches

The number of new sustainable fund launches, including mutual funds and ETFs in the first six months of 2023 reached 59, exceeding the 40 funds launched last year, or an increase of 48%. These included 35 new mutual funds and 24 ETFs.

Net Assets:  Mutual Funds and ETFs

Sustainable fund assets added $10.3 billion, to end June with $320.6 billion, the highest level reached so far this year.  A back of the envelope calculation based on the 3.99% average June gain realized by all sustainable funds combined, suggests that overall cash inflows for the month were positive.

Green and Social Bonds Issuance

Quarterly issuance in the first quarter of green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds bounced back, increasing 49% compared to the fourth quarter 2022 and 6% compared to the first quarter of 2022, led by supernational institutions and the public sector of advanced markets.

Relative Performance:  ESG vs. Conventional Indices

Sustainable mutual funds and ETFs, across all asset classes and fund categories, gained an average of 3.99% in June.  At the same time, ESG-equity oriented securities market indices tracked by MSCI lagged behind their conventional counterparts. One exception is the Bloomberg Barclays MSCI US Aggregate ESG Focused Index that performed in line with its conventional counterpart.

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Sources:  Morningstar Direct, Bloomberg and Sustainable Research and Analysis

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