Smarter Beta Investing: More Focus, Less Sustainability Bias, Same Performance

This study demonstrates how smart beta indices, tilted toward size, quality, value, and other factors, can be replicated, and customized to address inherent negative sustainability biases while maintaining the Sharpe ratio. Using the MSCI Barra Portfolio Manager platform, the core MSCI World Factor Tilt indices are replicated and analyzed. The findings highlight the lack of pronounced factor tilts for the ESG, size, and quality factors in the MSCI Indices, while the replicated style indices exhibit pronounced tilts across all styles. A sustainability analysis of the benchmarked factor portfolios reveals a high negative sustainability bias with significant variations in emissions and climate transition. For instance, emissions for the value replication increase by about 75% compared with the world benchmark. Customizing the style index replications by reducing the number of constituents and increasing the target tilt by 50% amplifies the negative sustainability bias, notably doubling value’s emissions compared with the world benchmark. However, integrating sustainable constraints effectively mitigates these negative biases across the eight factor-tilt portfolios while preserving their target tilts and Sharpe ratios. This approach allows practitioners to implement new or maintain proven factor-based investing strategies, sharpen their tilts, and meet evolving sustainable regulations by correcting negative sustainability biases—all while maintaining performance.