We are now able to provide you with multiple globally-diversified SRI portfolios, at relatively low cost, that are expected to track the performance of the long-standing Betterment Core portfolio closely. However, in order to maintain geographic and asset class diversification and to meet our requirements for lower cost and higher liquidity in all SRI portfolios, we continue to allocate to some funds that do not have SRI mandates, particularly in bond asset classes. Betterment may add additional socially responsible funds to the SRI portfolios and replace other ETFs as more socially responsible products become available.
We released our first SRI offering in 2017, with the stated intent to incrementally improve it over time, and we’ve done just that. You can think of these iterations as the latest, and certainly not the last step in that journey. By indicating what matters to you, as an investor, you are sending a signal to the financial services industry, which we will amplify, by bundling it with those of our other customers. As demand grows, and assets flow into funds that best reflect your values, those funds will become bigger, cheaper, and more liquid, continuing to erase whatever accessibility gaps remain between purely market-cap based index funds, and those that track a values-based index. As a result, the SRI portfolio you opt for today will only keep getting better at expressing your values.
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