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What is Responsible Investing?

Responsible investing includes a broad range of approaches that incorporate ESG factors in the investment decision-making process. This means that companies are evaluated on how well they manage the ESG matters relevant to their industries, on top of traditional financial metrics.

  • Environmental factors include climate change, water and wastewater management, and biodiversity.
  • Social factors include how a company treats its employees, customers and the communities that it operates in.
  • Governance factors include areas such as executive pay, board diversity and board independence.

Benefits of a Responsible Investing Portfolio

Choosing a Responsible Investing Portfolio at RBC InvestEase helps you invest for your future—and the world’s:

Money

Feel good about how your
money is invested.

Drive positive change with an investment portfolio that focuses on companies that are among the best stewards of our communities and our planet. See how we build your Responsible Investing Portfolio.

Money

Balance social responsibility and performance.

Our Responsible Investing Portfolios are designed to maintain similar risk and return characteristics to our Standard Portfolios, which means you can invest with your values without necessarily sacrificing long-term financial performance.

Money

Invest with a leader in ESG performance.

Helping Canadians reach their goals while being a force for positive change is important to us. In 2021, RBC was recognized as a leader by external rating agencies for our commitment to sustainability and ESG investing.Legal Disclaimer 1

  • Consistently ranked in the top quartile for the banking sector on key ESG indexes, including Sustainalytics, MSCI ESG Rating, FTSE4Good, and S&P Global’s Corporate Sustainability Assessment (informing the Dow Jones Sustainability Index)
  • Scored an “A-“ on the CDP, an international ranking of companies on climate change transparency and action in 2020
  • Committed to helping Canada reach net-zero emissions by 2050

How We Approach Responsible Investing

The Responsible Investing approach we use in our portfolios focuses on companies with the highest ESG scores.
We also remove companies involved in tobacco, contentious weapons, civilian firearms and severe controversies.

Our Portfolio Advisor team chose to build our Responsible Investing Portfolios using iShares ESG Aware exchange-traded funds (ETFs) managed by BlackRock Canada. For portfolios that have exposure to global government bonds, the iShares Global Government Bond Index ETF (ticker XGGB) is used.

The ETFs in our Responsible Investing Portfolios are designed to maximize exposure to companies with higher ESG scores, according to MSCILegal Disclaimer 2, while maintaining risk and return characteristics similar to the ETFs used in our Standard Portfolios. That means that the RBC InvestEase Responsible Investing Portfolios allow you to invest with your values, without necessarily sacrificing financial returns.

  • Make a positive impact by investing in companies that align with your values

  • Progress towards your future goals without necessarily giving up your financial performance

  • Invest with a trusted partner with industry-leading experience

Responsible Investing Portfolio Pricing

Table of portfolio fees and rates
Portfolios Annual Management Fee Management Expense Ratio (MER)
Standard 0.5% 0.11%–to0.13%
Responsible Investing 0.5% 0.18%–to0.23%
Responsible Investing or Standard Portfolio - What's Best for Me?
Socially Responsible Investing vs. Responsible Investing
How We Construct Your Responsible Investing Portfolio

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Legal Disclaimer 
RBC InvestEase is a restricted portfolio manager providing access to model portfolios consisting of RBC iShares ETFs with each model portfolio holding up to 100% of RBC iShares ETFs. RBC iShares ETFs are comprised of RBC ETFs managed by RBC Global Asset Management Inc. (RBC GAM) and iShares ETFs managed by BlackRock Canada Limited (BlackRock Canada). RBC GAM and BlackRock Canada have entered into a strategic alliance to bring together their respective ETF products under the RBC iShares brand, and to offer a unified distribution support and service model for RBC iShares ETFs.

Other products and services may be offered by one or more separate corporate entities that are affiliated to RBC InvestEase Inc., including without limitation: Royal Bank of Canada, RBC Direct Investing Inc., RBC Dominion Securities Inc., RBC Global Asset Management Inc., Royal Trust Corporation of Canada and The Royal Trust Company. RBC InvestEase Inc. is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Bank of Canada and uses the business name RBC InvestEase.

The services provided by RBC InvestEase are only available in Canada.