DFSE vs EMCS

DFSEBDimensional Emerging Markets Sustainability Core 1 ETF

EMCSAXtrackers MSCI Emerging Markets Climate Selection ETF

In short

DFSE Most emerging-markets ESG funds trim the index to a short list of leaders. Dimensional goes wide instead: roughly 4,300 stocks tilted toward small, value and profitable names, with weights adjusted for sustainability screens.

EMCS A screened take on emerging markets at core-tracker pricing: 0.15% a year for roughly 70 names carved out of a global selection index. Cheap enough to sit beside the plain-vanilla EM giants, narrow enough to look nothing like them.

Stated mandate

DFSE The fund seeks long-term capital appreciation through a broad, diversified portfolio of emerging-markets companies, with sustainability considerations affecting portfolio composition.

EMCS The fund seeks results generally corresponding, before fees and expenses, to the performance of its MSCI climate-selection index. The index represents large- and mid-capitalization companies across emerging-market countries and applies ESG and climate screens.

Why people hold it

• DFSE Not an index tracker. Dimensional buys broadly across emerging markets, leaning into small-cap, value and high-profitability names, then adjusts weights for sustainability impact.sec.gov
• The screen is specific: emissions intensity, fossil fuel reserves, coal, land and water use, tobacco, firearms and severe ESG controversies all feed weights and exclusions.sec.gov
• Roughly 4,300 stocks, so no single name carries the fund. Pays quarterly. Trading since 2022, one of the broadest portfolios in its peer group.
• The portfolio matches the mandate on paper: broad emerging-markets equity, sustainability tilts applied inside it, no derivatives detour.

• EMCS Costs 0.15% a year, well under the roughly 0.66% median for its EM index peer group and a fraction of EEM's 0.72%.
• Rules-based mandate, no discretion bolted on: it takes the emerging-market slice of a roughly 500-stock global selection index screened on climate and ESG criteria.sec.gov
• Concentrated on purpose: roughly 70 large- and mid-cap names instead of the several hundred in broad EM benchmarks, so the screens actually show up in the portfolio.
• Live since 2018 and one of the stronger implementations in its MSCI emerging-markets peer group.

Worth knowing

• DFSE Pricier than the category's index trackers: 0.41% net of a waiver through February 28, 2027 (0.44% gross), versus 0.16% for EMXF and 0.15% for EMCS.
• Thinly traded, so spreads and limit orders matter more here than with the category's largest funds.
• The small and value emphasis plus sustainability adjustments can push results away from a plain emerging-markets index, in either direction.sec.gov

• EMCS Thinly traded next to the EM heavyweights like IEMG and EEM, so spreads can run wider and larger orders push the price around more.
• Renamed twice since launch (ESG Leaders, then Climate Selection, now Select), each time with index and objective changes. Read the current prospectus, not the old ticker's story.dws.com
• Cash comes once or twice a year rather than monthly, and a portfolio this narrow can drift from broad EM returns in either direction.

Full DFSE profile⁠

Full EMCS profile⁠