SSGA, FlexShares Add New SRI-Themed ETFs

State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) has announced the launch of two new exchange-traded funds (ETFs) aligned with the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change.

The products are designed to help investors who want to decarbonize their portfolios and meet their personal climate objectives, the company said.

The two new funds are the SPDR MSCI USA Climate Paris Aligned ETF, which has the ticker NZUS, and the SPDR MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned ETF, with the ticker NZAC. Each will track relevant MSCI indexes and are geared towards investors who want their portfolios to mitigate climate risk as well as having an active impact through investing in climate solutions.

The latter product is an overhauled version of State Street’s SPDR MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF, ticker LOWC, which has changed name and has a new benchmark.

Elsewhere, Northern Trust’s ETF arm FlexShares has launched a new ESG product, the FlexShares ESG & Climate Emerging Markets Core Index Fund. The fund has the ticker FEEM and has a specific focus on emerging markets.

The FEEM fund is designed to help investors improve their portfolio’s overall ESG score — based on Northern Trust’s proprietary scoring system — and reduce carbon risk, while also looking to capitalize on sustainable opportunities.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg and MSCI have launched Global, Euro and US Corporate Paris-Aligned indexes as the first of their planned range of joint climate benchmarks for fixed income securities.

The indexes use an exclusions-based approach and have set an initial 50% reduction of absolute greenhouse gas relative to the standard Bloomberg corporate bond index, followed by 7.5% decarbonization relative to the baseline emissions.