FundfinderEthical & sustainable investing
There is no legal definition of an ethical KiwiSaver fund in New Zealand. Two funds with almost identical names can hold completely different companies. This page explains the four screening approaches providers actually use, how to check what your fund owns, and how the screened funds compare on fees and returns.
Guidance checked September 2026. Fund figures sourced from FundCompare NZ (data as at 2025-09-07T18:50:12.315087+00:00).
The fund refuses to hold certain industries — commonly tobacco, cluster munitions, whaling, and sometimes fossil fuel extraction, gambling or alcohol. This is the most common approach in New Zealand and the easiest to verify: the exclusions are listed in the fund's Statement of Investment Policy and Objectives (SIPO).
The manager still considers the whole market but weighs environmental, social and governance risks when picking or sizing holdings. It does not guarantee any company is excluded — it means ESG is one input among many. A fund can be 'ESG integrated' and still hold an oil major.
The fund tracks an index but overweights companies scoring well on chosen measures and underweights the rest. Kernel's ESG-tilted funds work this way. You keep index-like diversification and cost, with a lean rather than a hard exclusion.
Capital is deliberately directed at outcomes — renewable generation, affordable housing, healthcare access — with returns measured alongside impact. Rare inside mainstream KiwiSaver funds, and usually a small slice of a wider portfolio when it appears.
Funds whose published names identify them as ethical, sustainable, responsible or ESG-screened. Compare their fees against the average for the same risk level.
| Fund | Risk | Annual fee | vs peers | 5-year return | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Global Esg (Nzd Hedged) Fund Kernel | Aggressive | 0.25% | -0.60% | — | Fee cost |
Nz 50 Esg Tilted Fund Kernel | Aggressive | 0.25% | -0.60% | 3.99% | Fee cost |
Sustainable International Share ANZ | Aggressive | 0.90% | +0.05% | 13.87% | Fee cost |
Socially Responsible Moderate Fund Booster | Conservative | 1.21% | +0.40% | 2.81% | Fee cost |
Socially Responsible Balanced Fund Booster | Balanced | 1.33% | +0.51% | 5.25% | Fee cost |
Socially Responsible Growth Fund Booster | Growth | 1.34% | +0.37% | 5.31% | Fee cost |
Socially Responsible High Growth Fund Booster | Aggressive | 1.35% | +0.50% | 8.85% | Fee cost |
Socially Responsible Geared Growth Fund Booster | Aggressive | 1.46% | +0.61% | 6.72% | Fee cost |
"vs peers" compares this fund's annual fee with the average fee of every fund in the same risk band in our data — screened or not. Returns are past averages after fees and tax and are not a forecast. General information only, not financial advice.
No New Zealand rule says what a fund must exclude before calling itself ethical, sustainable or responsible. Two funds with identical labels can hold very different things. The label tells you the marketing; the SIPO and the full holdings list tell you the fund.
The Financial Markets Authority has published guidance on integrated financial products, requiring claims to be fair, clear and not misleading, and substantiated. Providers must be able to back up a sustainability claim — but you still need to read it.
Since 2021 default providers must exclude fossil fuel production, and most large schemes dropped cluster munitions, anti-personnel mines and nuclear weapons after the 2016 media coverage. Being 'weapons-free' is now a baseline, not a differentiator.
Cut out whole sectors and your fund will not track the broad market. Sometimes that helps, sometimes it hurts, and it usually adds tracking error. Judge an ethical fund against its own benchmark and time horizon, not against last year's best performer.
Screened and actively managed responsible funds often carry higher fees than a plain index fund, because someone has to research and monitor the exclusions. Tilted index funds are the cheap end. Use the fee calculator to price the difference over your working life.
Every KiwiSaver scheme publishes its full portfolio holdings quarterly on the Disclose Register. Mindful Money and Sorted's SmartInvestor let you search a fund and see what it actually owns.
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The evidence is mixed and depends entirely on the period. Excluding fossil fuels helped in some years and hurt in others. Over long periods, mainstream screened funds have broadly tracked their unscreened peers — fees and your risk level matter far more to your final balance than the screen does.
Search your scheme on the Disclose Register (disclose-register.companiesoffice.govt.nz) and open the latest fund update or full portfolio holdings. Mindful Money also lets you search a fund by name and shows companies of concern.
No. The name is a starting point only. Read the SIPO for the exclusions and the responsible investment policy for how they are applied. If a provider cannot show you a list, treat the claim as marketing.
Often yes — several providers offer a responsible or sustainable option inside the same scheme, so you change funds rather than schemes. Switching provider entirely is also free and takes a couple of weeks.
We flag funds whose published names identify them as ethical, sustainable, responsible or ESG-screened, based on FundCompare data. Plenty of other funds apply exclusions without saying so in the name, so treat this list as a starting point rather than the full universe.