Morningstar announced its launch of the Morningstar Sustainability Index Series™, a family of indexes that delivers exposure to companies that exhibit high standards of sustainability while maintaining a risk/return profile similar to the broad market. As the trend of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing continues, Morningstar’s new index family will help investors, advisors, and asset managers track the sustainability of their investments and shape investment strategies that leverage emerging research on ESG-based issues worldwide.
With more than 25 indexes covering broad regional markets, developed markets, emerging markets, and single-country exposure, the Morningstar Sustainability Index family draws on Morningstar’s proprietary Sustainability Rating™ for more than 20,000 funds, independent equity research on more than 1,400 companies, and Company Sustainability Scores that evaluate more than 60 ESG metrics. Morningstar launched the Sustainability Rating earlier this year, the industry’s first global standard for portfolio sustainability, to help investors evaluate mutual funds and exchange-traded funds based on how well the companies held in their funds are managing their ESG risks and opportunities. The indexes are based on company-level ESG research and ratings from Sustainalytics, a leading independent provider of ESG and corporate governance ratings and research.