DWS has seen the ESG screens tighten on six country and region low carbon ETFs with £8.2bn in assets under management following changes implemented by MSCI.

Effective June 1, the changes will see the indices add a set of low carbon rules, taking the number of ESG selection rules to three.

As well as high ESG performance selection rules, the six indices will also have low carbon transition risk assessment rules, identifying companies’ exposure to risk and opportunities related to the low carbon transition.

The indices will also apply low carbon emissions rules, removing companies with the highest current carbon emissions from the parent index.

The largest ETFs to be impacted by the changes are the £3.6bn Xtrackers MSCI USA ESG UCITS ETF (XZMU) and the £2bn MSCI World ESG UCITS ETF (XZW0).

The rules will also apply to the £1.2bn Xtrackers MSCI Japan ESG UCITS ETF (XZMJ), the £621m Xtrackers MSCI Europe ESG UCITS ETF (XZEU), the Xtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets ESG UCITS ETF (XZEM) and the £27m Xtrackers EMU ESG UCITS ETF (XZEZ).

The ETFs, which are labelled Article 8 under the Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), will keep their names, tickers, and total expense ratios following the changes.

It follows several recent index switches and the by DWS on its Xtrackers range, including the Xtrackers DAX Income UCITS ETF (XDDX) and the Xtrackers MSCI AC Asia ex Japan Swap UCITS ETF (XAXJ).

Source: ETF Stream

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