Raj Lala, president of Evolve Funds Group Inc., is zero for three when it comes to launching responsible-investment-themed funds.

The first was a gender-diversity exchange-traded fund (ETF) that closed after three years when it failed to attract enough investors. The second and third were a pair of carbon-neutral ETFs that lasted less than a year because, according to Lala, investors didn’t want to pay higher fees to offset the carbon-credit trades.

“It was a painful decision,” Lala says of closing the Evolve North American Gender Diversity Index ETF in 2020. He thought the carbon-neutral ETFs tracking the S&P 500 and S&P/TSX 60 launched in 2021 might have a better chance, “but the market also told us that they weren’t…