ESG Investing for the Next Generation: How to Invest by Your Values Without Sacrificing Returns

Many parents want their child’s nest egg to do more than grow. Some want to steer clear of companies whose products they would never buy. Others want to back businesses they believe are making the world better, and for many families, faith shapes that list. ESG investing, short for environmental, social, and governance, is the best-known way to build those preferences into a portfolio. It’s also one of the most debated ideas in investing. Supporters see a way to manage long-term risks while investing in line with what they believe. Critics see vague labels, higher fees, and politics. And in August 2026, Treasury and the IRS issued proposed regulations that would keep ESG funds out of Trump Accounts altogether.

This guide separates the evidence from the marketing. It explains what ESG funds actually do, what the data says about returns, why a values-based fund can zig when the market zags, how to keep the cost of your values low, which of your child’s accounts can hold these funds, and how to turn the choice into a family conversation. It’s part of The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation, which covers how to build the rest of a child’s portfolio.

What ESG investing means

The SEC’s investor bulletin on ESG funds describes three kinds of factors a fund might weigh. Environmental factors include a company’s energy use and pollution. Social factors cover its relationships with employees, customers, and communities, and the SEC notes they can include specific faith-based issues. Governance factors include transparency, ethics, shareholder rights, and how the board works. The same idea goes by other names, including sustainable investing, socially responsible investing, and impact investing.

The catch is that none of these labels has a single meaning. The SEC points out that some ESG factors aren’t defined in federal securities law, that there is no SEC rating or score for E, S, or G, and that the private ratings that do exist often differ significantly from one another. So funds put values into practice in different ways. Most use one or more of these four approaches:

Many broad ESG index funds combine the first two. As of June 30, 2026, the Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF started from U.S. companies of all sizes and excluded those involved in businesses including adult entertainment, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, gambling, weapons, nuclear power, and coal, oil, or gas, along with companies that fell short of certain labor, human rights, environmental, anti-corruption, and diversity standards. It still held 1,231 stocks.

Screens like these can catch companies you might not expect. Vanguard’s fact sheet showed that the fund’s index left out Walmart and RTX under its weapons screen, Johnson & Johnson and Wells Fargo under its controversies screen, and ExxonMobil and Berkshire Hathaway under its non-renewable energy screen. A screened fund may leave out companies your family admires and keep some you’d rather avoid. That’s why the list matters more than the name.

What the evidence says about returns

It’s the first question most parents ask: will investing by our values cost our child money? The honest answer is not much, on average, but it depends a great deal on the fund and on the years you look at.

The broadest review comes from NYU Stern’s Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management, which examined more than 1,000 studies published from 2015 to 2020 for their report ESG and Financial Performance. Among the studies of investment performance, 59% found that ESG approaches did as well as or better than conventional ones, and 14% found they did worse. The authors’ review of earlier meta-analyses concluded that ESG investing returns were generally indistinguishable from conventional returns. Treasury cited that finding in August 2026 when it judged that keeping ESG funds out of Trump Accounts would have very little economic impact.

Industry tracking points the same way, with caveats. The Sustainable Reality report from Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing compares about 99,000 funds worldwide using Morningstar data. In the first half of 2026, the median sustainable fund returned 4.9%, compared with 4.0% for traditional funds, and at median returns, $100 invested in December 2018 would have grown to $171 in sustainable funds versus $159 in traditional ones. But 56% of sustainable funds are stock funds, compared with 41% of traditional funds, and stocks were the best performers. Comparing stock funds alone, the first-half gap was smaller: 9.0% versus 8.6%. Sustainable funds also trailed in 4 of the 15 half-years since 2019, including the first half of 2022, when they fell behind by 4.63 percentage points.

The cleanest test compares an ESG index with the broad index it’s drawn from. The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index, launched in 1990 as the Domini 400 Social Index and one of the first socially screened indexes, holds about 400 U.S. companies with strong ESG ratings. It chooses them from the MSCI USA IMI, an index of 2,159 large, mid-size, and small U.S. companies, and leaves out companies whose products it judges harmful to society or the environment. From July 1999 through August 2026, the KLD 400 returned 8.56% a year before fund fees, compared with 8.89% for the broad index. Over the most recent 10 years, it was ahead, 15.60% a year to 14.97%.

• ESG index ahead
• ESG index behind

Each bar is the difference, in percentage points, between the calendar-year total return of the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index and that of its parent index, the MSCI USA IMI. Gross returns in U.S. dollars, before fund fees, from MSCI’s factsheet dated August 31, 2026. Past performance doesn’t predict future results.

See the numbers

Calendar-year total returns, 2012 to 2025

Year	KLD 400	MSCI USA IMI	Difference
2012	13.24%	16.41%	−3.17
2013	36.20%	33.39%	+2.81
2014	12.72%	12.51%	+0.21
2015	0.94%	0.64%	+0.30
2016	10.92%	12.66%	−1.74
2017	21.61%	21.28%	+0.33
2018	−3.50%	−5.20%	+1.70
2019	31.63%	31.14%	+0.49
2020	21.11%	21.10%	+0.01
2021	31.63%	26.12%	+5.51
2022	−21.48%	−19.22%	−2.26
2023	28.63%	26.25%	+2.38
2024	22.80%	23.82%	−1.02
2025	18.23%	17.25%	+0.98

Across these 14 calendar years, the ESG index beat the broad market in 10 and trailed it in 4, with an average gap of about 1.6 percentage points either way. Over long periods, small yearly differences compound. From July 1999 through August 2026, each $1 grew to about $9.25 in the ESG index and $10.04 in the broad index, which left the ESG index about 8% behind. Over the last 10 years, it finished about 6% ahead. Neither result tells you what the next 18 years will bring.

Economists also caution against assuming that green companies will keep winning. In a 2022 study in the Journal of Financial Economics, Ľuboš Pástor, Robert Stambaugh, and Lucian Taylor found that the strong returns of green stocks in recent years reflected unexpectedly strong increases in environmental concern, not high expected returns. They estimated lower expected returns for green stocks than for brown ones, the least environmentally friendly. The logic is that when many investors want to own the same companies, they bid up the prices, which can leave less return for later. If they’re right, a values-based portfolio may give up a little expected return in exchange for owning what you believe in.

Why a values-based fund can zig when the market zags

Returns differ mainly because screening changes what a fund owns. Screen out fossil fuels, and you miss years like 2022, when the S&P 500 Energy index returned 65.7% while the S&P 500 lost 18.1%, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. That year, the KLD 400 trailed its parent index by 2.26 percentage points. And the money a screen leaves out has to go somewhere else. As of August 2026, 42.19% of the KLD 400 was in information technology and 1.81% in energy. Vanguard’s ESG fund had 48.6% in technology and 0.1% in energy at the end of June.

Screening can also make a fund more concentrated, not less. The KLD 400’s 10 largest holdings made up 44.76% of the index in August 2026, while the same 10 companies made up 21.98% of the broad index. Nvidia alone was 14.25%. When fewer companies carry more weight, each one matters more, in both directions. If your child already owns a broad fund that leans heavily on the same tech giants, an ESG fund may add to that bet rather than balance it. Index Funds vs. Stock Picking for Minors explains why spreading money across many companies matters so much over a childhood.

Keep the cost of your values low

Three things decide whether your values cost your child anything meaningful: what you pay in fees, how broad the fund is, and what it actually screens. You control all three.

Fees

Fees are the one difference you know in advance. The SEC’s bulletin warns that funds that consider ESG may have different expense ratios than funds that don’t, and that paying more in expenses reduces the value of your investment over time. Values-based index funds usually cost somewhat more than the cheapest plain index funds. The table below draws its expense ratios from Vanguard’s fact sheet for its ESG fund, the Global X fact sheet for its Catholic values fund, TradingView for the iShares KLD 400 fund, The Daily Upside for the Vanguard S&P 500 and JLens funds, a 24/7 Wall St. profile for Fidelity’s S&P 500 fund, and the Investment Company Institute for the average actively managed stock fund. It shows what each fee would leave from $100 a month invested from birth, using this series’ hypothetical 7% average annual return before fees.

Expense ratios from the sources named above, as of October 2, 2026; the last row is the Investment Company Institute’s 2025 asset-weighted average. The dollar figure under each fee is its yearly cost on every $10,000 invested. Values assume our hypothetical 7% average annual return before fees, with $100 deposited at the end of each month for 216 months, compounded monthly, and each fee subtracted from the annual return. Every fund is assumed to earn the same return before fees, which real funds won’t. Funds are examples of different approaches, not recommendations. Not a prediction or guarantee.

The gap between the cheapest S&P 500 fund and a 0.09% ESG index fund comes to about $315 by age 18, a little more than three months of contributions. A 0.29% fund leaves about $1,142 less. Both are well below the cost of the average actively managed stock mutual fund, which charged 0.64% in 2025. A small premium can be a fair price for owning what you believe in, as long as you know what it buys.

Breadth

A broad ESG index fund with hundreds or thousands of stocks behaves much like the market, with a few tilts. A narrow fund built around a single theme, such as clean energy, may behave nothing like it. Morgan Stanley’s report itself cautions that, because of their narrow focus, sector investments tend to be more volatile than investments that diversify across many sectors and companies. The SEC’s guide to asset allocation and diversification makes the general point that spreading money among different investments can reduce risk. For a child’s core savings, broad beats narrow. If your child wants to back a specific mission, give it a small slice, the same way Fractional Shares suggests handling individual stocks.

What the fund actually screens

Two ESG funds can disagree about the same company, because the ratings behind them disagree. In a study published in the Review of Finance in 2022, Florian Berg, Julian Kölbel, and Roberto Rigobon compared ESG ratings from six prominent rating agencies and found correlations ranging from 0.38 to 0.71. A correlation of 1 would mean the raters agreed completely.

Tesla shows how that plays out. In 2022, S&P Dow Jones Indices left Tesla out of its S&P 500 ESG Index, a version of the S&P 500 designed to keep industry weights close to the full index. Its head of ESG indexes for North America explained that Tesla’s score had fallen into the bottom 25% of its industry group, citing its low-carbon strategy and codes of business conduct, claims of racial discrimination and poor working conditions at its Fremont factory, and its handling of a federal investigation after deaths and injuries were linked to its Autopilot system. ExxonMobil stayed in the index, Reuters reported. Yet Tesla was among the 10 largest holdings of the MSCI KLD 400 Social Index in August 2026 and of Vanguard’s ESG fund in June 2026. Which view is right depends on what you weigh most: what a company makes, or how it’s run.

Labels can also overpromise. The SEC calls it greenwashing when a fund exaggerates how much it takes environmental and sustainability factors into account, and it has brought settled cases over ESG claims. They include one against BNY Mellon’s investment adviser in 2022, a $19 million penalty for Deutsche Bank’s asset manager DWS in 2023, and a $17.5 million penalty for Invesco in 2024. The rules are in flux, too. In 2023, the SEC expanded its “Names Rule” to cover funds with terms like ESG in their names, requiring a policy of investing at least 80% of assets in line with the name. Its compliance deadlines have since been pushed back, and in 2026 the SEC began reviewing the amendments, according to Holland & Knight. A fund’s name is a starting point. Its prospectus, its index rules, and its holdings list are where the answers are.

Values investing is bigger than ESG

ESG is one lens, but it isn’t the only way families put values into a portfolio. Faith-based funds screen companies against religious teaching, instead of or alongside ESG ratings. Morningstar counts 46 faith-based ETFs in the U.S., 38 Christian, 7 Muslim, and 1 Jewish, according to The Daily Upside, and their screens vary widely. The Global X S&P 500 Catholic Values ETF excludes companies involved in activities its index judges inconsistent with Catholic values as outlined by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, while matching the S&P 500’s sector weights. The Inspire 100 ETF excludes companies with ties to abortion, LGBT activism, and gambling, among other screens. The SP Funds S&P 500 Sharia Industry Exclusions ETF leaves out more than half of the S&P 500 to follow Islamic law. Some faith-based funds end up looking much like a plain S&P 500 fund with a higher fee, which is worth checking before you pay for the label.

Families who would rather not screen at all have another option: the shareholder vote. Index funds vote on questions like executive pay and the election of board members at the companies they own, and some fund companies now let investors choose the voting policy for their share of the fund. Vanguard’s Investor Choice program offers a menu of five policies, ranging from following each company board’s recommendations, to a wealth-focused policy from the proxy adviser Egan-Jones, to an ESG policy from Glass Lewis. By early 2026, it covered 32 Vanguard equity index funds, including the Vanguard 500 Index Fund, and was open to individual investors and 529 plans, Vanguard reported. In 2025, no single option was chosen by more than 35% of participating individual investors. That lets a family keep a low-cost index fund and still put its views, whichever way they lean, into how its share is voted.

Which accounts can hold a values-based fund

Where the money sits decides what you can buy. Here’s how the accounts families most often use for children compare:

Brokerages and 529 plans set their own menus, so check what your account offers. The Trump Account rules are proposed and could change before they’re final.

Custodial accounts give you the widest choice. You pick the investments until your child reaches the age set by your state’s law, and the money belongs to your child from the start, as UTMA vs. UGMA explains. A custodial Roth IRA offers the same freedom for a child with earned income, as The Custodial Roth IRA describes. Keeping the money in your own name gives you the same menu and keeps control with you, and Custodial Brokerage Accounts vs. Parent-Owned Taxable Accounts weighs that trade-off.

529 plans: check your plan’s menu

A 529 plan offers a fixed menu chosen by the plan, and many plans have no ESG or socially responsible option. Where one exists, Saving for College notes, it’s usually a single-fund option rather than part of the age-based portfolios many families choose, so you’d need to manage the shift toward bonds and cash yourself, as Building a Target-Date Glide Path explains. You can generally move money already in a 529 to a different option only twice per calendar year, but you can send new contributions to a different option at any time, according to Saving for College’s guide to investment changes. If your state’s plan doesn’t offer what you want, another state’s might, though switching can mean giving up a state tax break. The Complete Guide to 529 College Savings Plans covers those trade-offs.

Trump Accounts: ESG funds are out

Trump Accounts are the exception. Until January 1 of the year your child turns 18, the law allows only low-cost mutual funds and ETFs that track an index of mostly U.S. stocks, and the proposed regulations published August 21, 2026, add an explicit rule: any fund that tracks an index that has, or is marketed as having, a focus on environmental, social, or governance factors is not an eligible investment. Treasury reasoned that ESG indexes limit exposure to companies in a way that makes them similar to the industry and sector funds the law already excludes. IRS Notice 2025-68 had called ESG indexes sector-specific, and the proposal drops that label but keeps them out. Treasury also noted that at the end of 2025, sustainable funds held $368 billion, compared with $19.4 trillion in U.S. passively managed mutual funds and ETFs, and reasoned that most parents wouldn’t have chosen ESG funds anyway. The rules aren’t final, and comments are due October 20, 2026. For now, a Trump Account holds plain U.S. stock index funds, and your values can show up in your child’s other accounts. The 530A Trump Account Explained has the details.

How to build a values-aligned portfolio for your child

Here’s a routine that keeps your values in the portfolio without letting them take over the plan. The steps run in order:

1. Name your values together. Write down the two or three issues that matter most to your family, and be specific. “No tobacco or gambling” is easy to check against a fund’s screens, while “sustainable” is not.
2. Choose your tool. Decide whether you want to screen companies out, favor higher-rated companies, back a theme, or keep a plain index fund and use a voting choice. Many families combine two.
3. Start with the account. Check what each of your child’s accounts can hold, using the table above, before you shop for funds.
4. Read before you buy. In the prospectus and on the fund’s website, look for what it excludes, which index or ratings it relies on, its expense ratio, how many stocks it holds, and its 10 largest holdings. The SEC suggests comparing an ESG fund’s portfolio with other funds’ portfolios to make sure it matches your goals.
5. Build a core and a satellite. Make a broad, low-cost fund the core, whether it’s an ESG index fund or a plain one, and keep any narrow theme or impact fund to a small slice. The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation shows how that core fits with bonds and cash.
6. Check once a year. Compare the fund’s return with a plain index fund’s, skim its holdings for surprises, and confirm its screens still match your values. As each goal gets closer, shift that money toward safety, and The Role of Bonds and Fixed Income explains which bonds fit which jobs.

Make it a family conversation

Values investing may be the easiest way to get a child interested in their own portfolio, because it starts with questions kids already ask: who makes this, and are they doing the right thing? Here are a few ideas by age, following The Age-By-Age Playbook to Financial Literacy:

• Ages 6 to 10. Talk about the companies behind the products your family uses and which ones your child would be proud to own a piece of. Keep it about what companies do, not about prices.
• Ages 11 to 14. Pull up the 10 largest holdings of an ESG fund and of a plain S&P 500 fund side by side, and count the names they share. In June 2026, the five largest holdings of Vanguard’s ESG fund were Nvidia, Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Amazon. Middle School (Ages 11-14) shows how to fold this into a yearly portfolio review.
• Ages 15 to 18. Have your teen read a fund’s exclusion list and find one company that surprises them. If your fund company offers voting choice, let them pick the policy and explain why. Each year, compare the ESG fund’s return with a plain index fund’s. High School (Ages 15-18) has more ways to hand over decisions.

Disagreement is part of the lesson. A teen who decides that an oil company belongs in the portfolio, or that a tech giant doesn’t, is learning to weigh evidence against values, which is the whole point.

Family gifts and shared values

Relatives may share your values or see things differently, and either way, how a gift is invested is your call. GoodNest can collect those gifts, often alongside a small keepsake. Guests give from your child’s GoodNest page and send the money straight to you by Zelle, Venmo, or PayPal. GoodNest never holds or invests it, so you decide where each gift goes, whether that’s an ESG index fund, a faith-based fund, or a plain index fund with the voting policy you chose.

Telling givers how you invest can make a gift feel more personal. A grandparent who cares about clean water, or about their church’s teaching, may be glad to hear the money went somewhere that reflects it. Mention it in your yearly update, as Thank You Notes and Portfolio Updates suggests. If a relative sees it differently, Discussing Wealth with Grandparents has ways to talk it through, and The GoodNest Guide to Asking for Investments Instead of Toys has ideas for starting the conversation.

Mistakes to avoid

• Paying for a label. If a values-based fund holds nearly the same stocks as a plain index fund, decide whether the extra fee buys a difference that matters to you.
• Making a narrow fund the core. A single-theme fund can swing far more than the market. Keep it to a small slice.
• Trusting the name. Ratings and screens differ from fund to fund. Read the exclusions and the holdings.
• Chasing last year’s results. The KLD 400 beat the broad market by 5.51 points in 2021 and trailed it the next year. Neither year said much about the decade that followed. The Psychology of Generational Wealth explains why steady beats reactive.
• Selling to switch without counting the cost. In a custodial account, selling at a gain creates taxable income for your child. Under Revenue Procedure 2025-32, the first $1,350 of a child’s investment income in 2026 is tax-free, the next $1,350 is taxed at the child’s rate, and income above $2,700 can be taxed at the parents’ rate. Sending new contributions and gifts to the new fund is often cheaper. Navigating the 2026 Kiddie Tax Thresholds has the details.
• Expecting perfection. Every broad fund will hold something someone in your family would question. Aim for a fund that is mostly aligned and low-cost, and use a voting choice or a small slice for the rest.
• Forgetting the Trump Account rule. Under the proposed regulations, funds that track ESG indexes aren’t eligible, so plan your values-based investing in your child’s other accounts.

The bottom line

You can invest your child’s money in line with your values without gambling the nest egg, as long as you keep the discipline that makes any portfolio work: broad funds, low fees, a long horizon, and a yearly check. The evidence doesn’t promise that a values-based fund will beat the market or trail it. Over long periods, the oldest broad ESG index in this article stayed within about a third of a percentage point a year of its parent index, with stretches of both. What you control is the fee you pay and how concentrated you let the portfolio become.

Start with the account, read the screens, keep the core broad and cheap, and make the choice a conversation your child can join. For how values-based funds fit with the rest of your child’s portfolio, return to The GoodNest Guide to Investment Strategies & Portfolio Allocation.

Frequently asked questions

Do ESG funds have lower returns?

Not consistently. A review of more than 1,000 studies by NYU Stern’s Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management found ESG investing returns generally indistinguishable from conventional ones. The MSCI KLD 400 Social Index returned 8.56% a year from July 1999 through August 2026 before fees, compared with 8.89% for its broad parent index, and it was ahead over the last 10 years. Single years can differ by several percentage points, so fees and concentration matter more than the label.

Can a Trump Account hold ESG funds?

No, under proposed regulations published August 21, 2026. Until January 1 of the year your child turns 18, a Trump Account may hold only low-cost index funds of mostly U.S. stocks, and the proposal says any fund that tracks an index with, or marketed as having, an environmental, social, or governance focus isn’t eligible. Comments are due October 20, 2026. A custodial account or custodial Roth IRA can hold ESG funds instead.

Can I invest a 529 plan in ESG funds?

Only if your plan’s menu includes an ESG or socially responsible option. Where one exists, it’s usually a single-fund portfolio rather than part of an age-based option. You can generally change how money already in the account is invested twice per calendar year, but new contributions can go to a different option at any time. If your state’s plan has no such option, another state’s plan might, though you could give up a state tax break.

What’s the difference between ESG and faith-based investing?

ESG funds screen or rank companies by environmental, social, and governance factors, usually using ratings from firms such as MSCI or S&P. Faith-based funds screen companies against religious teaching, such as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ guidelines or Islamic law. The two can overlap, since both may exclude industries such as gambling, but they often reach different conclusions about the same companies. In both cases, read the fund’s exclusion list and compare its fee with a plain index fund’s.

How can I tell if an ESG fund is greenwashing?

Look past the name. Read the prospectus to see what the fund excludes and which index or ratings it relies on, compare its 10 largest holdings with a plain index fund’s, and check its expense ratio. The SEC suggests asking how central ESG is to the fund’s choices and how it weighs each factor. The SEC has settled greenwashing cases against fund firms, including a $19 million penalty for DWS in 2023 and a $17.5 million penalty for Invesco in 2024, so claims are worth checking against what the fund actually owns.

Sources

• Internal Revenue Service and U.S. Department of the Treasury, “Guidance on Eligible Investments for Trump Accounts,” notice of proposed rulemaking, Federal Register document 2026-17123 (published August 21, 2026).
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Funds: Investor Bulletin” (February 26, 2021).
• Vanguard, Vanguard ESG U.S. Stock ETF (ESGV) fact sheet (as of June 30, 2026).
• Tensie Whelan and others, NYU Stern Center for Sustainable Business and Rockefeller Asset Management, “ESG and Financial Performance,” a review of studies published from 2015 to 2020 (2021).
• Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing, “Sustainable Reality: 1H 2026” (September 2026).
• MSCI, MSCI KLD 400 Social Index (USD) index factsheet (as of August 31, 2026).
• Ľuboš Pástor, Robert F. Stambaugh, and Lucian A. Taylor, “Dissecting Green Returns”, Journal of Financial Economics 146, no. 2 (2022), pages 403 to 424, via the National Bureau of Economic Research.
• S&P Global Market Intelligence, “S&P 500 logs its worst annual performance since 2008” (January 2023).
• Global X ETFs, Global X S&P 500 Catholic Values ETF (CATH) fact sheet (accessed October 2, 2026).
• TradingView, iShares ESG MSCI KLD 400 ETF (DSI) overview (accessed October 2, 2026).
• The Daily Upside, “Are Faith-Based ETFs the Answer to Clients’ Prayers?” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• 24/7 Wall St., profile of the Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX) (August 24, 2026).
• Investment Company Institute, “Trends in the Expenses and Fees of Funds, 2025”, ICI Research Perspective (March 2026).
• U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor.gov, “Asset Allocation and Diversification” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Florian Berg, Julian F. Kölbel, and Roberto Rigobon, “Aggregate Confusion: The Divergence of ESG Ratings”, Review of Finance 26, no. 6 (November 2022), pages 1315 to 1344.
• Margaret Dorn, S&P Dow Jones Indices, “The (Re)Balancing Act of the S&P 500 ESG Index”, Indexology Blog (May 17, 2022).
• Reuters, via Euronews, “Tesla cut from S&P 500 ESG Index, and Elon Musk tweets his fury” (May 19, 2022).
• Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, “Investment Adviser Settles SEC Enforcement Action Concerning Alleged Misstatements Regarding ESG Investment Process” (October 2023).
• Kramer Levin, summary of the SEC’s $17.5 million settlement with Invesco Advisers (November 2024).
• Holland & Knight, “SEC Initiates Review of ESG Fund Names Rule” (March 4, 2026).
• Vanguard, “Vanguard Investor Choice” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• David Reiner, Vanguard, “What’s Ahead for Vanguard Investor Choice in 2026?” (February 25, 2026, updated March 5, 2026).
• Saving for College, “Responsible Investing With 529 Plans” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Saving for College, “How Many 529 Plan Investment Changes Can You Make Per Year?” (accessed October 2, 2026).
• Internal Revenue Service, Revenue Procedure 2025-32, inflation adjustments for 2026 (2025).

This article is for general educational purposes only and is not investment, tax, or legal advice. Funds named are examples of different approaches, not recommendations to buy any security. Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal, and past results don’t predict future ones. Fund screens, holdings, and fees change, and the Trump Account rules described here are proposed and may change before they’re final, so confirm the details with the fund company, your account provider, or a qualified professional. GoodNest does not provide tax, legal, or investment advice and does not hold or invest funds.