The index will focus on companies leading the way when it comes to gender equality.

Lyxor Asset Management launched a exchange-traded fund which the firm claims is Europe’s first gender equality ETF, as the sector continues to invest heavily into the environmental, social and governmental.

Developed with Equileap, an organisation set up to accelerate progress towards gender equality in the workplace, and Solactive, an index provider, Lyxor’s new ETF focuses on companies leading the field for gender equality, the firm said in a statement.

The Equileap Global Gender Equality Index is based on Equileap’s own global database, which covers more than 3,000 companies in 23 developed market countries. Each company has a market capitalisation of at least $2 billion and an average daily value traded of at least $5 million.

To refine the selection to just 150 companies, Lyxor’s ETF uses Equileap’s gender scorecard, a 19 criteria methodology inspired by the UN Women's Empowerment Principles. Key criteria for selection are gender balance, equal compensation, work life balance, policies promoting gender equality, transparency and accountability. Index holdings are equally weighted and re-balanced annually.

Over the last six years, the Global Gender Equality strategy outperformed the MSCI World Index by 10.7 per cent. ESG-based ETFs have proved popular in Europe this year, attracting €2 billion ($2.31 billion) in new assets, and increasing assets under management to €5.8 billion, according to Lyxor AM.

“This ETF marks an important step in our progress towards a complete range of environmental, social and governance based investment products," said Clarisse Djabbari, deputy head of Lyxor ETFs and indexing. "We are the only provider in Europe to offer ETFs on 4 of the Sustainable Development Goals; Gender, Water, New Energy and climate change through our Green bond ETF”.

The Lyxor Global Gender Equality UCITS ETF  is available on Euronext Paris with a total expense ratio of just 0.35 per cent.