What is EarthFolio?
EarthFolio is an online investment platform that provides a collection of professionally managed portfolios that feature sustainable third-party mutual funds. The EarthFolio portfolios are managed by Blue Marble Investments, a registered investment advisor with $110 million in assets under management.
Despite their name, EarthFolio actually screens for more than just environmental factors. They look at a variety of different investment screens:
- Environment
- Clean Tech
- Equality and Diversity
- Human Rights
- Fair Labor
- Animal Welfare
- Non-violence
- Corporate Governance
- Healthy Living
- Community Development
- Fossil-fuel Free
They have pre-selected several investment funds which meet many of the criteria above. Only one fund passes all the screens while the remaining funds each meet at least eight of the eleven listed screens. Based upon your preferences, they will put you into funds which meet your standards.
However, they do indicate that all of the included funds have some amount of investment in Clean Tech which they define as "companies that specialize in resource efficiency and clean energy solutions such as wind, solar, and geothermal." To avoid fossil fuel investments though, it appears that users have to proactively choose the ESG Fossil Free option as discussed below.
Open an EarthFolio ESG Fossil-Free Portfolio
Make it easy to have a greener portfolio by relying on thier robo-advisor to keep track of things for you and choose climate friendly choices.
How does EarthFolio's ESG Fossil-Free Portfolio work?
According to EarthFolio, their ESG Fossil-Free Portfolio actively includes:
- 100% Renewable Utilities
- Electric Transportation
- Battery Technology
while excluding:
- Fossil-fired utilities
- Oil and Gas
- Coal mining
They further define fossil-free as "funds that fully exclude companies engaged in the exploration, production, or distribution of energy from coal, oil, and natural gas."
While EarthPortfolio does not directly disclose which funds are included in the ESG Fossil-Free Portfolio, using the defintition above implies that it includes the following funds:
- Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth Fund - invests in mid to large sized companies, mostly in the United States (like Microsoft and Apple)
- Morgan Stanley Global Sustain A - invests in large companies around the world (like Microsoft and SAP)
- Nuveen ESG Large-Cap Growth ETF - invests in US large companies (like Microsoft and Alphabet)
- Nuveen ESG Mid-Cap Growth ETF - invests in mid-sized US companies (like Etsy and Slack)
- Parnassus Mid Cap Growth Investor - invests in mid-sized US companies (like Square and Autodesk)
How directly does EarthFolio's ESG Portfolio support renewable energy investments?
If you invest in EarthFolio's ESG Portfolio, it does not appear that any of your funds will go directly to companies installing renewable energy producing assets. On the other hand, if you have additional priorities or values you want to make sure are being addressed with your investments, EarthFolio makes it easy to include these in your portfolio while still excluding fossil fuel investments.
Performance of EarthFolio Portfolios
It is very difficult to determine the performance of the portfolios built on EarthFolio since each one is unique to the preferences of the user. They also do not release performance metrics for their model portfolio. Instead on their website, they reference the performance of other ESG portfolios, but not of their own portfolios.
However, if you were to sign up for an EarthFolio account and input your particular choices they will provide you with 15 years of historic returns. This will give you a sense of how well your chosen portfolio would have performed had you invested in the past.
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