The world’s largest fund manager, BlackRock, and Thomson Reuters have announced the launch of an Inclusion and Diversity Fund.
The iShares Thomson Reuters Inclusion & Diversity UCITS exchange traded fund has been launched to meet investor demand for a fund that promotes corporate diversity and inclusion practices in both developed and emerging markets.
This fund tracks the Thomson Reuters Global Large/Mid Diversity and Inclusion ex-Controversial Weapons Equal Weight Total Return index, a derivative of the TR Diversity & Inclusion index.
The index ranks more than 2,000 public companies and features the top 100 with the most diverse and inclusive workplaces, based on 24 metrics: Diversity, Inclusion, People Development and News / Controversies.
In a media statement, announcing the launch, Brian Deese, head of Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, said the increasingly amount of available data on sustainability has made it possible to better measure and understanding inclusion and diversity from an investment perspective.
Rachel Lord, head of the EMEA region at BlackRock, added: “We are launching this fund at a time when a spotlight is firmly on companies to show what they are doing to improve the diversity of their workforce.
“We know that diverse teams make better decisions, and this is ultimately good for investors. It is a significant step forward in the evolution of products that harness the power of social change to deliver long-term investment outcomes.”
