UC Investments, the University of California's investment arm in Oakland, has made a total capital commitment of $300 million to two State Street Global Advisors climate-related exchange-traded funds.
SSGA said in a news release it was introducing the SPDR MSCI USA Climate Paris Aligned ETF and the SPDR MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned ETF. A University of California Office of the President spokesman confirmed that UC Investments had invested $150 million in each fund.
The funds track the MSCI USA Climate Paris Aligned and MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned indexes and are geared to the increasing number of investors interested in addressing climate change via their portfolios, "both to mitigate climate risk and to invest in climate solutions," the SSGA news release said.
The SPDR MSCI ACWI Climate Paris Aligned ETF "is the result of several fund changes" made to the SPDR MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF, an SSGA spokeswoman said.
As was announced earlier, changes were made to the SPDR MSCI ACWI Low Carbon Target ETF, including its name, ticker and benchmark, the release said.
UC Investments started shedding its fossil fuel holdings in 2015, and its $168 billion portfolio is now "virtually fossil free," according to the release, which also included comments from Jagdeep Singh Bachher, the University of California's chief investment officer.
"As an early stage investor in these new ETFs, we hope to open the door to others who, like us, believe that clean energy will fuel the world's future and wish to invest in a decarbonized portfolio to improve the risk and return characteristics of their holdings over longer periods of time," he said in the release.
SSGA had roughly $4 trillion in assets under management as of March 31.