When you can invest in Biblical ETF

The environmental, social and governance sub-sector of the fund space is seen as a growth frontier for exchange-traded funds and ETF issuers are responding to that theme. On Tuesday, California-based Inspire Investing bolstered its lineup of Christian values ETFs with the debut of the Inspire 100 ETF BIBL.

“All of our funds are built using our Inspire Impact score methodology, which identifies the most inspiring biblically aligned companies in the world,” said Inspire CEO Robert Netzly.

BIBL tracks the cap-weighted Inspire 100 Index, which features exposure to U.S. companies with market values of above $20 billion. The index's 100 member firms meet biblically responsible investing standards.

“We select portfolio companies using the Inspire Impact Score methodology, our proprietary process that identifies companies doing amazing things like working to cure cancer, providing clean water solutions and otherwise being a blessing to their communities, customers, workforce and the world, while at the same time avoiding investments in companies involved in immoral activities like abortion, pornography and human trafficking,” according to Inspire Investing.

From there, the methodology scores the remaining companies based on their positive attributes based on the products and services they provide, the workplace environment they provide, community activities and efforts in support of the environment, the prospectus says.

BIBL features exposure to 10 of the 11 sectors found in the S&P 500 with telecommunications being the exception. The new ETF's largest sector allocation is to industrials, followed by health care and consumer discretionary. 

BIBL has smaller allocations to sectors such as consumer staples, energy, materials, technology and utilities. Inspire donates 50 percent or more of its corporate profits per year to causes including Bible, distribution, clean water initiatives, Syrian refugees and other causes.

BIBL is the fourth ETF in the Inspire suite. Earlier this year, the issuer launched the Global Hope Large Cap ETF and the Inspire Small/Mid Cap Impact ETF. The firm also has a fixed income product, the Inspire Corporate Bond Impact ETF.

“We really wanted to give people an easy straight-across comparison—market-cap-weighted, rebalanced annually, tax efficient, low-cost as possible—but make it biblically responsible,” Netzly added.

As such, the methodology selects the 100 highest-scoring companies, and weights them based on market capitalization. The other Inspire products are equal-weighted, but Netzly says the firm used cap weighting for BIBL in order to appeal to investors looking for an S&P 500 replacement.