VANECK MORNINGSTAR ESG MOAT ETF (MOTE) Exchange: BATS

The Fund normally invests at least 80% of its total assets in securities that comprise the Fund’s benchmark index. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index provides exposure to attractively valued companies with long-term competitive advantages while excluding those companies with high environmental, social and governance (”ESG”) risks. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index is comprised of securities issued by U.S. companies that Morningstar, Inc. (“Morningstar” or the “Index Provider”) determines to have long-term competitive advantages based on a proprietary methodology that considers quantitative and qualitative factors (“wide moat companies”). The quantitative factors used by Morningstar to identify competitive advantages currently include historical and projected returns on invested capital relative to cost of capital. The qualitative factors used by Morningstar to identify competitive advantages currently include customer switching cost (i.e., the costs of customers switching to competitors), internal cost advantages, intangible assets (e.g., intellectual property and brands), network effects (i.e., whether products or services become more valuable as the number of customers grows) and efficient scale (i.e., whether the company effectively serves a limited market that potential rivals have little incentive to enter into). Wide moat companies are selected from the universe of companies represented in the Morningstar® US Market IndexSM, a broad market index representing 97% of U.S. market capitalization. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index excludes from consideration those wide moat companies that receive a severe or high ESG risk rating based on Morningstar’s Sustainalytics ESG Risk Rating. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index also excludes companies (i) involved in the production or distribution of controversial weapons or civilian firearms (ii) involved in the extraction of or generation of power from thermal coal, (iii) have a Sustainalytics controversy score of five (out of a scale of 1 to 5) in the last three (3) years, (iv) those that have a severe or high Carbon Risk Rating from Sustainalytics or (v) that have greater than 50% of revenues from tobacco products. The Sustainalytics company-level ESG Risk Score measures the degree to which a company's economic value may be at risk driven by materially relevant ESG factors. The ESG Risk Score is based on a two-dimensional materiality framework that measures a company's exposure to subindustry-specific material risks and how well a company is managing those risks. ESG Risk Scores are categorized across five risk levels: negligible, low, medium, high and severe. The scale is from 0-100, with 100 being the most severe. Sustainalytics controversy scores are determined based on ESG-related incidents, which are assessed through a framework that considers the severity of incidents, the corporation’s accountability and whether the incidents form part of a pattern of corporate misconduct; a Sustainalytics controversy score of five indicates a severe controversy rating. Sustainalytics Carbon Risk Ratings assess a company’s carbon risk by evaluating the company’s material exposure to and management of carbon issues.The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index targets wide moat companies that according to Morningstar’s equity research team are attractively priced as of each US Sustainability Moat Focus Index review. Morningstar selects eligible companies to be included in the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index as determined by Morningstar’s standardized, proprietary valuation model that predominantly relies on a detailed projection of a company’s future cash flows. Wide moat companies may include medium-capitalization companies. The Fund’s 80% investment policy is non-fundamental and may be changed without shareholder approval upon 60 days’ prior written notice to shareholders.As of August 31, 2021, US Sustainability Moat Focus Index included 60 securities of companies with a full market capitalization range of between approximately $3.2 billion and $2,268.6 billion and a weighted average full market capitalization of $257.9 billion. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index employs a staggered rebalance methodology. The US Sustainability Moat Focus Index is divided into two equally-weighted sub-portfolios, and each is reconstituted and rebalanced annually, one in June and the other in December. The Fund, using a “passive” or indexing investment approach, attempts to approximate the investment performance of the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index by investing in a portfolio of securities that generally tracks the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index. Unlike many investment companies that try to “beat” the performance of a benchmark index, the Fund does not try to “beat” the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index and does not seek temporary defensive positions that are inconsistent with its investment objective of seeking to track the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index.The Fund is classified as a non-diversified fund under the Investment Company Act of 1940, as amended (the “1940 Act”) and, therefore, may invest a greater percentage of its assets in a particular issuer. The Fund may concentrate its investments in a particular industry or group of industries to the extent that the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index concentrates in an industry or group of industries. As of August 31, 2021, each of the consumer discretionary, financials, industrials and information technology sectors represented a significant portion of the US Sustainability Moat Focus Index.