Socially responsible investing

At Wealthfront, Socially Responsible Investing (SRI) means an approach to investing that seeks to balance financial returns with positive social impact by selecting investments that increase exposure to companies that support  Environmental, Social, or Governance (ESG) factors. We evaluate all of the SRI investments on our platform based on ESG factors. Read our Socially Responsible portfolio whitepaper to learn more.

After much feedback from clients, we’re happy to offer multiple ways to create a socially responsible portfolio, and our team is hard at work creating new ways to invest consistently with your values and beliefs. 

Using an expert-built socially responsible portfolio

Our expert-built portfolios, built using Modern Portfolio Theory, are globally diversified and designed to weather the market's ups and downs. We currently offer one socially responsible, expert-built portfolio:

Socially Responsible

Our portfolio diversified with companies selected for socially responsible practices.

We look forward to building more out-of-the-box portfolios in the future. Let us know if you have any suggestions — we’d love to hear them!

Adding socially responsible investments to your portfolio

You can customize your portfolio by adding individual socially responsible investments. Learn how to add socially responsible ETFs to your portfolio in our article about customizing your portfolio. 

Currently, we offer the following socially responsible ETFs:

Ticker symbol	Fund name	Asset class	Alternate ETFs (if applicable)
ESGU	iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF	US stocks	ESGV
ESGD	iShares ESG Aware MSCI EAFE ETF	Foreign market stocks	NUDM
ESGE	iShares ESG Aware MSCI EM ETF	Emerging market stocks	NUEM
ICLN	iShares Global Clean Energy ETF	Global stocks	ACES
EAGG	iShares ESG Aware US Aggregate Bond ETF	US bonds	NUBD
BGRN	iShares Global Green Bond ETF	Global bonds
CRBN	iShares MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF	Global stocks
DSI	iShares Trust - iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social ETF	US stocks
KRMA	Global X Conscious Companies ETF	US stocks
NACP	Impact Shares NAACP Minority Empowerment ETF	US stocks
PBW	Invesco WilderHill Clean Energy ETF	Global stocks
QCLN	First Trust NASDAQ Clean Edge Green Energy Index Fund	Global stocks	CNRG
SDG	iShares MSCI Global Impact ETF	Global stocks
SUSB	iShares ESG Aware 1-5 Year USD Corporate Bond ETF	Corporate bonds
SHE	SPDR SSGA Gender Diversity Index ETF	US stocks
SUSC	iShares ESG Aware USD Corporate Bond ETF	Corporate bonds	VCEB
VEGN	US Vegan Climate ETF	US stocks
VSGX	Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF	Global stocks

*If your account has Tax-Loss Harvesting enabled, we’ll purchase these investments when the primary investment declines in value. This can help improve your returns and/or lower your taxes. Learn more in our article about Alternate ETFs.

Excluding investments that aren’t socially responsible from your portfolio

If your portfolio holds US Direct Indexing (formerly known as Stock-level Tax-Loss Harvesting), you can tell us which individual companies you’d like to exclude from your investments through the restrictions list in settings. Learn more in our article about stock restriction lists.

Keep in mind that removing securities held in US Direct Indexing impacts the expected return and risk of your portfolio, and may cause its performance to deviate from that of our initial portfolio recommendation.