EMCR vs LDEM

EMCRAXtrackers Emerging Markets Carbon Reduction and Climate Improvers ETF

LDEMAiShares ESG MSCI EM Leaders ETF

In short

EMCR A carbon-tilted way to own emerging markets wholesale: roughly 1,400 stocks screened for climate commitments, at 0.15% a year when the typical EM fund in its group charges more than triple that.

LDEM The budget door into strict ESG in emerging markets. LDEM tracks an MSCI index that keeps the best ESG scorers within each sector, and charges 0.16% to do it, well under the going rate in its peer group.

Stated mandate

EMCR The fund seeks to track the performance of the Solactive ISS Emerging Markets Carbon Reduction & Climate Improvers Index NTR before fees and expenses.

LDEM The fund seeks to track an index of emerging-market companies with high environmental, social, and governance characteristics relative to their sector peers.

Why people hold it

• EMCR Charges 0.15% a year against a 0.49% median for its emerging-market peer group, one of the cheapest tickets in the category.
• Roughly 1,400 names spread across emerging markets, so no single stock or country call carries the portfolio.
• The mandate is explicit: passive tracking of the Solactive ISS EM Carbon Reduction & Climate Improvers index, with the climate and ESG rules written into the prospectus.
• Undercuts the cohort's better-known tilts on fee: FNDE at 0.39% and XSOE at 0.32%, with EMCR priced under both.

• LDEM At 0.16%, it undercuts the typical fee in its ESG emerging-markets peer group by a wide margin, so less of a volatile asset class's return goes to the manager.
• Best-in-class logic: companies are judged against sector peers instead of whole industries getting banned, so the sector mix stays closer to a plain EM fund.ishares.com
• The index caps any single issuer at 5%, a real check in emerging markets, where a handful of giants can crowd out everything else.ishares.com
• No cleverness beyond the screen: a straight index build of roughly 400 names, and one of the tighter mandate fits in its ESG emerging-markets group.

Worth knowing

• EMCR Thinly traded next to the category's giants, so bid-ask spreads can run wider than the headline fee suggests.
• The screen reweights the book away from a plain EM index, so its sector and country mix departs from the standard benchmark.
• Pays on an annual or semiannual schedule, not monthly.

• LDEM Small asset base and thin trading volume, so spreads can run wider than on the household-name emerging-markets funds.
• Distributions land once or twice a year rather than quarterly, so income arrives in lumps.
• Sibling ESGE runs the looser ESG Aware screen at 0.25%. LDEM costs less and screens harder, which means a narrower, more exclusionary lineup.

Full EMCR profile⁠

Full LDEM profile⁠