BlackRock’s $1.9bn euro aggregate bond ESG ETF will see changes to its index to align with France's stricter ESG investment rules under the Socially Responsible Investment (ISR) label introduced in late 2023.
The iShares € Aggregate Bond ESG UCITS ETF (SEAG) will see its oil and gas exposure reduced to comply with the ISR labelling requirements.
The changes will take effect on 2 January 2025.
It comes as the French Ministry of Economy and Finance previously announced stricter criteria for funds with an ISR label, with the new criteria means that ETFs holding the label will be forced to sell their fossil fuel holdings from 2025.
It was previously highlighted that the changes would be harder for passive funds to adopt, given that they may have to switch indices or launch a new ETF following the changes.
Amundi recently launched a suite of active equity and fixed income strategies which comply with new French socially responsible investing (SRI) criteria.
Amundi said its active approach will allow it to quickly adapt to regulatory changes in particular.
In 2022, BlackRock announced SEAG would switch from tracking the Bloomberg Euro Aggregate Bond index to the Bloomberg MSCI Euro Aggregate Sustainable and Green Bond SRI index.
As a result, SEAG was renamed to the iShares € Aggregate Bond ESG UCITS ETF.
