SUSC vs VTC

SUSCAiShares ESG Aware USD Corporate Bond ETF

VTCAVanguard Total Corporate Bond ETF

In short

SUSC Corporate bond beta with a conscience filter: roughly 4,000 investment-grade USD bonds, screened on business involvement and tilted toward better ESG profiles, in one ticker. Trading since 2017, paying monthly.

VTC Most cheap corporate bond funds sell you one slice of the maturity curve. VTC buys the whole investment-grade corporate market, short to long, for 0.03% a year, and since 2025 it owns the bonds directly instead of stacking three Vanguard funds.

Stated mandate

SUSC The fund seeks to track an index of investment-grade USD corporate bonds with positive environmental, social, and governance characteristics in aggregate.

VTC The Fund seeks to track a broad, market-weighted corporate bond index, specifically the Bloomberg U.S. Corporate Bond Index. It uses an indexing approach focused on investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporate bonds.

Why people hold it

• SUSC Breadth, not a slice. About 4,000 investment-grade USD corporate bonds, so the screen runs across the whole market rather than a narrow corner of it.
• At 0.18%, it sits just under the typical fee in its investment-grade corporate peer group, which is unusual for a screened product.
• The label and the portfolio match: one named benchmark, the Bloomberg MSCI US Corporate ESG Focus Index, and a mandate you can hold the fund to.ishares.com
• Income arrives monthly, from a fund with a track record stretching back to its 2017 launch.

• VTC 0.03% a year against a 0.19% median for investment-grade corporate ETFs. On this exact Bloomberg index, nothing in the group charges less.
• One ticker, the full corporate curve. Top-graded rivals like VCIT, IGIB and IGSB each buy a single maturity band; VTC's index spans short, intermediate and long fixed-rate corporates.
• No overlays, no active tilts, no credit guesswork. Market-weighted indexing of investment-grade, fixed-rate, taxable corporates, and the portfolio hews tightly to that mandate.
• Income lands monthly, not quarterly, which matters if bond coupons are doing real work in your cash flow.

Worth knowing

• SUSC The screen carries a price tag. Plain broad investment-grade corporate funds like USIG and VCIT charge a fraction of 0.18% for unscreened exposure.
• ESG Aware is a tilt, not a purge. The index targets better ESG characteristics in aggregate alongside business involvement screens, so familiar large issuers still appear.ishares.com
• Trading is moderate rather than heavy, so spreads deserve a look on larger orders.

• VTC Whole-curve means long bonds in the mix, so prices move more with interest rates than a 1-5 year slice like IGSB does.
• The plumbing changed in March 2025: Vanguard moved it from holding three underlying corporate bond ETFs to buying the index bonds directly. Same objective, same index.sec.gov
• Moderately traded rather than a volume heavyweight, so spreads can run wider than the busiest corporate bond funds, particularly in choppy markets.

Full SUSC profile⁠

Full VTC profile⁠