Russell Investments Australian Responsible Investment ETF

Product Name	Russell Investments Australian Responsible Investment ETF
Issuer	Russell Investments
Category	Investment
Type	Exchange Traded Fund (ETF)
Target	Retail, Wholesale
Certified Since	2015

Asset Classes	Australian only equities
Markets	Australia
Investment Approaches	Negative Screening, Positive Screening
It Includes:	More sustainable companies
It fully excludes:	Alcohol Armaments Fossil fuels Gambling Human rights abuses Logging Pornography Tobacco
Broker	Responsible Returns
URL	https://www.responsiblereturns.com.au/investment-options/russell-investments-australian-responsible-investment-etf/profile

Overview

The Russell Australian Responsible Investment ETF (the 'Fund') seeks to track the Russell Australia ESG High Dividend Index ('the Index'), which is weighted towards companies that demonstrate positive environmental, social and governance (ESG) characteristics after negatively screening for companies that have significant involvement in a range of activities deemed inconsistent with widely recognised responsible investment considerations. The Fund invests in Australian shares and trusts listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), with the aim of providing investors with exposure to an ESG enhanced, responsible investment portfolio.

Description

The Index starts with the members of the Russell Global Australia All Cap Index (a sub-index of the Russell Global Index) as the parent index. Since the Index is constructed for domestic use, foreign ownership limits are not applied.

The first step in constructing the Index is to exclude securities that are not listed on the ASX from the parent index. In addition, companies that are considered by a Responsible Investment Committee to be inconsistent with certain ESG objectives are also excluded from the Index. Such activities may include, but are not limited to, a material involvement in: the manufacture and distribution of tobacco, alcohol, gambling, pornography and armaments; the production or combustion of more carbon-intensive fossil fuels.

Companies which lag industry peers in approaching ESG risk such as involvement in activities causing environmental damage, violation human rights and businesses with questionable third-party transactions, and have a poor record of managing such ESG risk, may also be excluded.

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Other products certified by the Responsible Investment Association Australasia (RIAA)

Russell Investments Low Carbon Global Shares Fund

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Russell Investments Low Carbon Global Shares Fund - Class AUDH

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The products featured on this site have all achieved certification under the Responsible Investment Association Australasia’s (RIAA) Responsible Investment Certification Program.

Transparency & Verification

What sets these investment products aside from regular ones on the market is they all have some type of responsible or ethical strategy applied to them.

At a minimum, their issuers explain these strategies in public documents and open their offices and books to third party verifiers who check these strategies are implemented according to what you read about them publicly.

You can also click through to see the underlying managers and / or stock holdings in each certified product as well as access a certified product’s recent performance results.

Stewardship & Impact

In July 2019, we lifted our requirements of certified products which we are phasing in over 18 months.

We now require that issuers have organisation-wide commitments to responsible investing and they exercise their responsibilities as stewards of your money - through engaging with companies to improve sustainability performance and voting on shareholder resolutions where possible. All certified products now need to at least avoid significant harm and their issuers will annually report against any sustainability-based claims made by their products. This uplift in program standards is part of our passion for, and on-going commitment to, responsible and ethical investing.

Even though we're lifting the bar, we know your convictions to doing good with your money may be higher and so we have served up our member's certified products with a large dose of transparency and independent verification, so that you can draw your own conclusions from reliable information and choose investments that best suit your individual needs.