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The two most popular sustainable global bond funds in our database are not necessarily the best performing ones. 

As we previously mentioned, a total of five allocators each owning the Wellington Global Impact Bond and the Robeco Global Credit SDG fund, their respective performance has left much to be desired. 

Both funds are relatively new to the sphere: Robeco’s was created in mid–2018, while Wellington’s came into existence in April 2019.

A quick glance at the figures since the inception of Wellington Global Impact Bond revealed that both funds are lagging behind their peer group - the IA Global Mixed Bond sector. 

That Robeco fund has fared so poorly that it’s been crowned the worst-performer in its sector over a three-year period. 

But lacklustre performance has done little to diminish DFMs’ enthusiasm for the two green bond funds. 

Michael Heapy, senior investment analyst at Iboss, said the thing which attracted them to the Wellington fund was its aim to make a positive impact and its documentation.

But he said: "Another reason the fund made it into the portfolio was its relative duration to some of our other bond holdings. 2022 was the worst year on record for fixed-income assets as central banks worldwide increased interest rates to tackle rising inflation.

"We now see greater value in many areas of the fixed income market and have added to funds like the Wellington fund to take advantage of the longer-duration opportunities."

The Wellington fund has recently joined Robeco as the joint most-owned ESG fund of its type – present in five of the portfolios we monitor. 

The former, worth £438mn and managed by Campe Goodman, has added two new buyers this year. 

Turning to which funds are performing better than the above mentioned, the most owned global corporate bond fund among all of the allocators we cover, so not just the ESG portfolios, is Vanguard’s Global Bond Index fund, which is owned by eight of the allocators we cover, and has picked up a net of one new buyer this year.

In performance terms it has lost 16 per cent over the past three years and is resolutely bottom quartile, indicating its not just ESG allocators who are struggling to navigate the vagaries of fixed income markets right now. 

Joseph Wilkins is a freelance journalist