15 Best ESG ETFs for 2026: Fees, Size, and Name Changes

The best ESG ETFs in 2026 are the broad, cheap, liquid ones: Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) at a 0.09% expense ratio, Xtrackers MSCI USA Selection Equity ETF (USSG) at 0.09%, Xtrackers S&P 500 Scored & Screened ETF (SNPE) at 0.10%, and iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF (ESGU) at 0.15%, which is the largest US-listed ESG equity fund at roughly $17.75 billion. For international exposure, Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF (VSGX) charges 0.10% and iShares ESG Aware MSCI EAFE ETF (ESGD) charges 0.20%. One complication almost no fund list mentions: several of these funds now trade under different names. The letters “ESG” have been stripped from fund and index titles across the industry since February 2025, so the fund you searched for by its old name may look like it disappeared when it is simply relabelled. That naming churn is the single biggest practical trap in ESG investing right now.

This article is information, not financial advice. Fund sizes and fees below were read from issuer and index-provider pages on 11 and 12 August 2026 and are dated in the tables. Expense ratios and assets change; check the fund’s own prospectus before you buy.

What are the best ESG ETFs to buy in 2026?

There are fifteen US-listed ESG exchange-traded funds worth knowing, and to choose the best ESG fund for you it helps to see that they do three different jobs: a broad US core holding, an international sleeve, and a thematic bet on clean energy or climate technology. Sustainable investing at the index-fund level is mostly a question of which job you are hiring the fund to do, and the best funds for one job are the wrong ones for another. Only the first group is a sensible place to put the bulk of an investment portfolio, and for most investors it is where the decision starts and ends. The table below is the whole shortlist, sorted by role, with the fee and fund size each issuer published on the date shown.

Fund (current name)	Ticker	Expense ratio	Assets under management	As of
Broad US core
iShares ESG Aware MSCI USA ETF	ESGU	0.15%	$17.75 billion	Aug 2026
Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF	ESGV	0.09%	$13.2 billion	2026
iShares ESG MSCI KLD 400 ETF	DSI	0.25%	$5.52 billion	10 Aug 2026
iShares ESG Optimized MSCI USA ETF	SUSA	0.25%	$4.15 billion	11 Aug 2026
SPDR S&P 500 Fossil Fuel Reserves Free ETF	SPYX	0.20%	$2.75 billion	14 Jul 2026
Xtrackers S&P 500 Scored & Screened ETF	SNPE	0.10%	$1.66 billion	2026
Xtrackers MSCI USA Selection Equity ETF	USSG	0.09%	Not published on run date	2026
International developed markets
iShares ESG Aware MSCI EAFE ETF	ESGD	0.20%	$11.3 billion	22 May 2026
Vanguard ESG International Stock ETF	VSGX	0.10%	$6.69 billion	10 Jul 2026
iShares ESG Advanced MSCI EAFE ETF	DMXF	0.12%	$804.7 million	2026
NYLI Candriam International Equity ETF	IQSI	0.15%	$237.8 million	2026
Thematic: clean energy and climate tech
iShares Global Clean Energy ETF	ICLN	0.39%	About $2.5 billion	May 2026
Invesco Solar ETF	TAN	0.70%	About $1.4 billion	30 Jul 2026
Global X ClimateTech ETF	CTEC	0.50%	Not published on run date	2026
Invesco MSCI Sustainable Future ETF	ERTH	0.66%	$144 million	27 Feb 2026

Two numbers in that table do most of the work. The fee gap between the cheapest broad fund (0.09%) and the most expensive thematic one (0.70%) is roughly eight times, and the size gap between ESGU and ERTH is more than a hundred times. Size matters for tradability: a $144 million fund has wider bid-ask spreads and a higher chance of being closed than a $17 billion one, which is exactly what happened to one fund that used to appear on this page.

Why have so many ESG ETFs changed their names?

Because regulators tightened the rules on what a fund may call itself, index providers renamed the underlying indices, and the funds followed. S&P Dow Jones Indices renamed the S&P 500 ESG Index to the S&P 500 Scored & Screened Index on 10 February 2025, stating plainly that the change was made to help clients with the European Securities and Markets Authority’s new fund-naming guidelines and that the methodology itself was unchanged. MSCI renamed its ESG Leaders index family the same month, and the ETFs tracking those indices were renamed within days.

The practical consequence lands on you at the search box, not in the portfolio. Type “Xtrackers MSCI USA ESG Leaders” into a broker’s search box today and you will get nothing, because the fund is called the Xtrackers MSCI USA Selection Equity ETF. The ticker did not move. Here is every name change and closure affecting funds that appeared on earlier versions of this list.

Name used on older lists	Ticker	What it is called now	When and why
Xtrackers MSCI USA ESG Leaders Equity ETF	USSG	Xtrackers MSCI USA Selection Equity ETF	3 Feb 2025, following the index rename from MSCI USA ESG Leaders to MSCI USA Selection. Methodology unchanged.
Xtrackers S&P 500 ESG ETF	SNPE	Xtrackers S&P 500 Scored & Screened ETF	Index renamed 10 Feb 2025 by S&P DJI for ESMA naming rules. Methodology unchanged.
iShares MSCI USA ESG Select ETF	SUSA	iShares ESG Optimized MSCI USA ETF	Current name on BlackRock’s own product page, read 11 Aug 2026.
iShares MSCI KLD 400 Social ETF	DSI	iShares ESG MSCI KLD 400 ETF	Current name on BlackRock’s own product page, read 10 Aug 2026. The underlying MSCI KLD 400 Social Index kept its name.
IQ Candriam ESG International Equity ETF	IQSI	NYLI Candriam International Equity ETF	Renamed twice: “ESG” dropped 31 Aug 2023, then IQ became NYLI on 28 Aug 2024.
Global X CleanTech ETF	CTEC	Global X ClimateTech ETF	1 Apr 2026, with the index switching from Indxx Global CleanTech to Indxx Global ClimateTech.
Invesco MSCI Green Building ETF	GBLD	Liquidated	Last trading day 23 Feb 2026. Shareholders received cash at net asset value.

None of these renames changed what the funds hold. That is worth saying clearly, because the pattern is easy to misread as issuers quietly abandoning sustainability screens. In these seven cases they did not. Separately, Xtrackers did announce that it will remove ESG screening from eleven European UCITS funds effective 1 June 2026 and move them to standard MSCI benchmarks, which is a genuine change of substance, but those are Europe-domiciled funds and none of them is on this list.

Which “ESG ETFs” on other lists are not actually ETFs?

Five of the funds that used to be listed on this page are mutual funds, not exchange-traded funds. They are legitimate socially responsible investing products, and some are large, but they do not trade intraday, they usually carry an investment minimum, and their fees run several times higher than a broad ESG ETF. Their ESG focus is often stronger and more active, which is part of why they cost more. Index funds and ETFs are not interchangeable labels here. If you searched for an ETF, buying one of these by mistake means paying an active-management fee for something you thought was an index tracker.

Fund	Ticker	Structure	Expense ratio	Net assets
Parnassus Core Equity Fund	PRBLX	Mutual fund	0.81%	$24.1 billion (May 2026)
1919 Socially Responsive Balanced Fund	SSIAX	Mutual fund	Check prospectus	About $924 million (Feb 2026)
Impax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund	PXWEX	Mutual fund	Check prospectus	$816.6 million (2026)
Boston Trust Walden Balanced Fund	WSBFX	Mutual fund	Check prospectus	Not verified on run date
Shelton Sustainable Equity Fund	NEXTX	Mutual fund	1.26%	$71.1 million (26 May 2026)

Two of these have also been renamed. The Shelton Green Alpha Fund is now the Shelton Sustainable Equity Fund, and the Pax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund became the Impax Ellevate Global Women’s Leadership Fund when Pax World was absorbed into Impax Asset Management. If sustainable mutual funds are what you actually want, our guide to socially responsible mutual funds covers them properly, and clean energy mutual funds handles the environmental subset.

What is the cheapest ESG ETF?

ESGV and USSG tie at 0.09%, and SNPE is next at 0.10%. On a $10,000 position that is $9 a year against $70 for the Invesco Solar ETF at 0.70%. The fee spread inside the broad-market group is small enough that it should not be your only tiebreaker, but the spread between broad and thematic is large enough that it should give you pause about putting core money in a sector fund.

Cost is not the only difference. ESGV tracks the FTSE USA All Cap Choice Index and holds around 1,249 positions, so it reaches down into small caps. SUSA holds 192 and DSI holds 401, both as of mid-August 2026. A 192-stock fund is a far more concentrated bet than a 1,249-stock one, and concentration, not the fee, is what will drive the difference in how they behave.

How do ESG screens actually work?

An ESG index applies two separate filters: a rating score and a list of business-involvement exclusions. The exclusions are the part you can check, because issuers publish them. BlackRock lists DSI’s screens as adult entertainment, alcohol, civilian firearms, controversial weapons, conventional weapons, fossil fuel extraction, fossil fuel reserves ownership, gambling, genetically modified organisms, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, thermal coal power and tobacco. SUSA’s list is similar but shorter, and notably does not include adult entertainment, GMOs or fossil fuel reserves ownership. The two funds also track different benchmarks: DSI follows the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index and SUSA follows the MSCI USA Extended ESG Select Index, both read from BlackRock’s product pages in August 2026.

Read that carefully and one thing becomes obvious. “Fossil fuel extraction” is screened, but broad ESG funds still hold energy and utility companies that burn fossil fuels, because the screens are revenue-threshold based rather than categorical. If your goal is to own no oil and gas at all, a screened index fund is the wrong tool and a fossil-free or clean-energy fund is the right one. Screens are built around business involvement, not around a company’s measured environmental impact. That distinction is the single most common source of disappointment with ESG ETFs, and it is why understanding what ESG criteria actually measure matters more than picking between two funds with near-identical fees. Funds screened for ESG standards remove the worst offenders by revenue share; they do not build a fossil-free portfolio.

Why do ESG ratings disagree with each other?

Because there is no agreed definition of what a good ESG score measures, and the rating agencies do not measure the same things. The most cited study on this, “Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings” by Berg, Koelbel and Rigobon, published in the Review of Finance in 2022, compared six major raters and found average pairwise correlations between their ESG ratings of only 38% to 71%. The authors attributed 56% of the divergence to measurement, 38% to scope, meaning which issues each rater considers at all, and 6% to how the issues are weighted.

That has a direct consequence for anyone comparing funds. Two ESG portfolios can screen for the same categories, use different raters, and end up holding materially different companies. It also means a fund marketed as holding companies that exhibit positive or favorable ESG characteristics is making a claim about one provider’s view of ESG risks and opportunities, not about an objective standard. MSCI ratings drive most of the iShares and Xtrackers funds on this page. Morningstar and its Sustainalytics arm run a separate system, which is why a fund can look strong on one site and average on another.

The workable response is to stop treating ESG ratings as a quality grade and start treating them as a description of method. Social and governance factors are the hardest to score consistently. Corporate governance, for example, is the letter most likely to be graded on disclosure quality rather than outcomes, so a company with excellent reporting can outscore a company with better practices. Reading a fund’s index methodology takes longer than reading a star rating, and it is the only fund research that reliably tells you what you are buying and whether it matches your values.

Do ESG ETFs underperform the market?

Not structurally, but they will track differently, and the direction depends almost entirely on the energy sector. A screened S&P 500 fund holds most of the same companies as the parent index with the heaviest fossil fuel names removed or reduced. In a year when energy leads the market, that fund lags. In a year when technology leads, it often does slightly better, because screening tends to leave the index tilted toward asset-light companies.

The honest framing is that a broad ESG ETF is a tracking-error decision rather than a return decision, and the evidence on whether ESG screening helps or hurts financial performance has stayed mixed in recent years. You are accepting some deviation from the market in exchange for a portfolio that matches your exclusions. Thematic clean-energy funds are a different animal entirely: ICLN and TAN are concentrated sector bets that have swung hard in both directions, and treating them as an ESG core holding is the mistake most likely to cost you money.

Be careful with any list that ranks the best-performing ESG funds over a trailing window. Past performance does not predict future returns, and in this corner of the market a three-year leaderboard mostly tells you which way energy and interest rates moved. A more useful comparison is between a screened fund and its own parent index over the same period, because that isolates the effect of the screen from the effect of the stock market. Judge financial returns against the benchmark the fund actually tracks, not against a leaderboard of unrelated ESG investment funds.

Should ESG funds be a core holding or a satellite?

Broad, screened equity ETFs can sit at the core of an allocation; thematic funds should not, and neither should active funds. ESGU, ESGV, SNPE, USSG, ESGD and VSGX are diversified index funds that happen to apply exclusions, so they behave like the equity asset class they track and can carry a large share of a portfolio. ICLN, TAN, CTEC and ERTH are concentrated sector bets on a single technology story, and sizing them like core holdings is how sustainable investing portfolios end up far riskier than their owners intended.

Fees follow the same split. The broad group runs 0.09% to 0.25%. The thematic group runs 0.39% to 0.70%, and active ESG funds in this space charge more again. Higher fees are defensible when a manager is doing something an index cannot, and harder to defend when the fund is simply tracking a narrower index. If your investment strategy is ordinary long-term growth with exclusions attached, the cheap broad funds do the job and the thematic ones are optional. Sustainable investments should still be sized like any other equity position.

One more asset allocation note. Every fund on this page is an equity fund. None of them gives you bond exposure, so an ESG-screened equity ETF replaces the stock portion of an allocation and nothing else. Investors who want the whole portfolio screened need to look at sustainable funds in fixed income separately, and those who want a single ready-made solution are usually better served by a managed ESG portfolio than by assembling one from these building blocks.

How do you buy an ESG ETF?

You buy an ESG ETF exactly as you would any other ETF: search the ticker in a brokerage account and place an order. There is no separate account type for investing in ESG funds and no minimum beyond the price of one share, or less if your broker supports fractional shares. Three practical points are worth knowing before you place the order.

• Search by ticker, not by name. Given the renames above, the ticker is the only stable identifier. USSG, SNPE, SUSA, DSI, IQSI and CTEC all still trade under the tickers they always had.
• Use a limit order on the smaller funds. ESGU and ESGD trade tightly. IQSI at $238 million and ERTH at $144 million do not, and a market order on a thin fund can fill worse than the quoted price.
• Check the holdings file, not the fund name. Every issuer publishes a daily holdings list. It takes two minutes and settles any question about whether a fund owns something you object to.

If you would rather someone else assemble the ESG portfolio around your investment goals, our roundup of impact investing apps covers the platforms that build sustainable portfolios for you, and Vanguard’s ESG lineup is worth reading if you are already a Vanguard customer.

What mistakes do investors make with ESG ETFs?

• Assuming a renamed fund was closed. Six of the funds here changed names between 2023 and 2026 without changing what they hold. Only one, GBLD, actually shut down.
• Buying a mutual fund thinking it is an ETF. Five names that circulate on ESG ETF lists are mutual funds with fees up to 1.26%.
• Treating a clean-energy fund as a core holding. ICLN, TAN, CTEC and ERTH are sector bets, not diversified equity exposure.
• Expecting zero fossil fuel exposure from a broad ESG fund. Revenue-threshold screens are not categorical exclusions.
• Ignoring fund size. Small funds close, GBLD was liquidated in February 2026 and shareholders had no say in the timing.

How we chose and checked these funds

This list of ESG ETFs was not ranked by performance. Every fund was checked against four questions on 11 and 12 August 2026: does it still exist, is it still an ETF, does it still trade under the name published on most lists, and what does its issuer currently publish for fees and assets. Expense ratios and assets under management come from issuer product pages, fact sheets and index-provider announcements, and each figure carries the date it was read. Name-change dates come from the index provider or the fund’s own filings rather than from secondary reporting. Where a figure could not be confirmed on the run date, the table says so instead of carrying forward an older number.

We have not invested in these funds ourselves and this page contains no affiliate links to any fund or broker named on it. We do not accept payment for inclusion. This is information about publicly traded funds, not a recommendation to buy any of them, and it is not financial advice.

Frequently asked questions about ESG ETFs

Sources and last update

Last updated 12 August 2026. This guide to the best ESG ETFs for 2026 was rebuilt from the ground up on that date. Fifteen funds were re-verified against issuer pages, five entries that were mutual funds rather than ETFs were moved into their own clearly labelled table, one liquidated fund was removed, and six name changes were documented with dates. Fund fees and assets were read from BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, Invesco, DWS Xtrackers, Global X and New York Life Investments product pages and fact sheets. Index name changes were taken from S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI announcements. Fund sizes move daily; treat every figure as accurate to the date beside it.

Nothing here is financial advice, and none of these funds is a recommendation. Read the prospectus, check the current holdings, and speak to a licensed adviser about your own circumstances before investing.