Vanguard introduce "SustainableLife" funds

[dave559]

I see that Vanguard have created new "SustainableLife" funds, which are (reasonably) similar to their LifeStrategy funds, but only investing in companies that they deem to meet certain sustainable criteria.

However, their filter seems to be rather less demanding than that used by their existing ESG funds (filtering out, for example, specifically oil sands, but not all oil companies, which seems to be a pretty huge thing not to also filter out).

The are three funds with different proportions of equities to bonds: 40-50%, 60-70% (this one is their existing "Vanguard Global Balanced Fund" rejiggled), and 80-90%, and also a "Global Sustainable Equity Fund" which is generally equities (with a little leeway into other investment types), and which may also include up to 20% emerging markets (I'm not sure if the mixed funds are developed world only).

The OCF of each of these funds is 0.48%, which is signifantly higher than those of their existing ESG funds. It seems to me that it would perhaps be much better value to use one of the existing ESG funds and then an appropriate proportion of other bond funds (or maybe LS 20) for your desired share of bonds?

• Vanguard Sustainable Life funds