HSBC Asset Management has launched their World ESG Biodiversity Screened Equity UCITS ETF.

The fund aims to invest in companies that have strong biodiversity credentials and meets Article 8 Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR) classification.

The fund tracks the Euronext ESG Biodiversity Screened Index series which were jointly developed by HSBC, Euronext and Iceberg Data Lab. The parent index is the Euronext World Index.

The fund applies three exclusionary biodiversity filters:
1. Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) filter built to include biodiversity considerations e.g. pesticides, hunting, whaling etc.2
2. Negative ESG screening removing the worst 25% of constituents using Sustainalytics risk performers methodology
3. IDL Corporate Biodiversity Footprint uplift of around 35% versus the parent index

The ETF will consist of the top 500 companies that perform the best in terms of the Corporate Biodiversity Footprint and Sustainalytics ESG risk score, whilst not participating in any of the exclusionary actions applied by the enhanced socially responsible investing (SRI) filter.