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Vanguard Energy Fund

Vanguard Real Estate Index Fund

Vanguard Real Estate II Index Fund

Vanguard Global Environmental Opportunities

Stock Fund

Supplement Dated July 19, 2024, to the Prospectus

Prospectus Text Changes

In the More on the Fund section under the “Security Selection” heading, the following is added after the existing disclosure:

Ownership Limitations

As the assets managed by Vanguard and its external advisors continue to grow, the securities held by Vanguard funds increasingly are impacted by ownership limitations. Ownership limitations restrict the amount that funds can invest in certain securities, due to either regulatory limits that apply to certain industries (for example, banking and utilities) or mechanisms that some issuers have in place to deter takeover attempts (for example, poison pills). These restrictions can have negative impacts on funds, including the inability of an index fund to track its index, the inability of a fund to meet its investment objectives, negative performance impacts, and unanticipated tax consequences. The impact of a particular ownership limitation on a Vanguard fund will vary based on several factors, including, but not limited to, the industry to which the limitation applies, the country or region of a particular issuer, and the regulatory body imposing the limitation. In addition to the impacts of specific ownership limitations, Vanguard is also subject to the risk of multiple ownership limitations applying at one time, which could increase the likelihood of a fund experiencing the negative impacts listed above. Vanguard attempts to mitigate the impacts of ownership limitations on the Vanguard funds through the various methods discussed below in Methods to Address Ownership Limits. However, it is possible that these methods will be unsuccessful.

Impacts of Ownership Limitations

When an ownership limitation applies, Vanguard may need to tell the Vanguard funds how much of impacted securities each fund can buy and hold. When this occurs, a fund may not be able to buy additional securities or continue to hold existing securities above its allocated amounts. For index funds, this can result in tracking error if a fund cannot buy or hold the securities it needs in order to

replicate or sample its target index. For active funds, this can result in a fund’s advisor not being able to take advantage of favorable opportunities to invest in securities that are subject to limitations. For both index and active funds, the inability to buy or hold securities could prevent a fund from being able to meet its investment objective or invest in accordance with its investment strategy, and/or could negatively impact the fund’s performance. In addition, the steps Vanguard and the Vanguard funds take to address ownership limitations could result in additional costs and/or unanticipated tax consequences to a fund that affect the amount, timing, and character of distributions to the fund’s shareholders. The more assets Vanguard and its third-party advisors manage, the more likely it is that ownership limitations could affect the Vanguard funds negatively.

Methods to Address Ownership Limitations

Vanguard and the Vanguard funds try to manage the negative impacts that ownership limitations could have on the Vanguard funds by seeking permission (relief) from regulators and/or issuers to purchase or hold more securities than the amount allowed by ownership limitations. However, it is not always possible to secure relief, and there is an increasing amount of uncertainty around how much ownership limitations relief regulators will grant to asset managers like Vanguard. Given this uncertainty, there is no guarantee that Vanguard or the Vanguard funds will be able to obtain additional relief from ownership limitations in the future. In addition, the relief upon which Vanguard and the Vanguard funds currently rely, which has allowed Vanguard to exceed certain ownership limitations, could be reduced or revoked, forcing the Vanguard funds to sell down one or more securities to comply with the ownership limitations. If a fund has to sell securities, there could be negative impacts to fund performance as well as unanticipated tax consequences that could impact the amount, timing, and character of distributions to the fund’s shareholders.

When a Vanguard fund cannot buy or hold securities directly due to ownership limitations, the fund will typically try to get indirect exposure to impacted securities. The fund does this so that it can replicate as closely as possible the returns the fund would get if it directly owned the impacted securities. Indirect exposure can be accomplished through the use of derivatives, such as total return swaps, or by investing in wholly owned subsidiaries that hold the impacted securities. Both of these methods of obtaining indirect exposure increase fund costs, and, depending on the extent to which these alternatives are used by a fund to avoid exceeding ownership limits, the added costs could have a negative impact on the fund’s performance. The risks of derivatives use are discussed elsewhere in the prospectus.

The following is added to the More on the Fund section under the heading “Other Investment Policies and Risks”:

The Fund may use derivatives as an alternate means to obtain economic exposure if the Fund is required to limit its investment in a particular issuer or industry.

The following is added to the More on the Fund section under the heading “Temporary Investment Measures”:

The Fund may also invest beyond its normal limits in derivatives as an alternate means to obtain economic exposure if the Fund is required to limit its investment in a particular issuer or industry.

PS EQC 072024