In response to BlackRock and Rhodium Group’s report on climate risk, the BlackRock’s Big Problem Campaign released the following statement: This report confirms what we’ve known for years and what was recently highlighted by the San Francisco Federal Reserve: climate change is having financial consequences now on securities, investors are underestimating these impacts, and unless significant changes are made, climate […]
Today marks the release of Banking on Climate Change: Fossil Fuel Finance Report Card 2019. This 10th annual bank report card was published by the Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, and Honor the Earth, and endorsed by more than 160 organizations around the world. For the first time, […]
BNP Paribas Asset Management, with more than $450 billion in assets, has just gone where very few major asset managers have dared to go: it is divesting its actively managed funds from coal – specifically any company that derives more than 10% of its revenue from thermal coal mining. This ten percent threshold is among […]
The American Prospect dives deep into how BlackRock could make a real difference on climate, but how they instead opt for “half measures and public relations schemes”. This week Jeff Hauser and Elenaor Eagan of the Revolving Door Project posted a well reseaserched, well reasoned backgrounder on BlackRock’s outsized power and influence and how instead […]
Activists greeted hundreds of BlackRock employees early on Valentine’s day by handing out chocolates and cards, with a hidden message inside. BlackRock talks a big game about “social purpose” but in all their public communications and more importantly their actions, they continue to operate like they don’t have one themselves. As the world’s biggest owner […]
This week activists showed up outside another Larry Fink awards ceremony in New York and at a confusing speech from their Vice Chairman in Washington DC. The campaign targeting BlackRock is picking up steam across the country, with activists braving New York winter and donning business suits in D.C. to ask tough questions about BlackRock’s […]
NY Times opinion article asks how far American companies like BlackRock will go to enable climate- and Indigenous-rights wrecking leaders like Bolsonaro. The rise of far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has put the environment human rights, and the global climate in peril. His promises to open the Amazon for business could result in huge deforestation […]
Today, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink published his annual letter to CEOs. In this year’s letter, he describes an “increasingly fragile” global landscape and a need for corporations to be leaders and “address pressing social and economic issues.” Fink failed to mention climate change at all in the letter, despite the urgent need to take action […]
The Yes Men released a “brilliant” hoax that went viral the day before Fink’s real investor letter was sent. But many asked, why couldn’t BlackRock do this? Republished from the Yes Men website. In the early morning of January 16, a few hours before announcing their fourth-quarter 2018 earnings, Laurence Fink, CEO of BlackRock, the […]
A letter to BlackRock’s CEO from a group of investors and shareholder advocacy groups made headlines including in the Financial Times and NYT DealBook. Today, a letter written to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink from a group of investors and NGOs made headlines- getting a lengthy write up in the Financial Times and a shout out […]
The world’s biggest funder of climate change faces increasing pressure to stop backing coal. New analysis shows it and 15 other big investors lost over $3.5B on coal investments in India. A new report out from Greenpeace India today shows that 16 big equity investors – including BlackRock – have lost over $3.5B over the […]
As world leaders meet in Poland at the UN Climate Conference, two new reports show BlackRock is the largest investor in both new coal plants and existing reserves worldwide. During this week’s UN Climate Conference in Poland, world leaders are meeting to discuss how to meet the goals of the Paris agreement, which require a […]
Palm oil was supposed to save the planet, but instead it unleashed a catastrophe. U.S. policies and financing including from BlackRock are at the heart of the problem. This past Sunday, the New York Times Magazine ran a terrific in-depth feature titled Palm Oil Was Supposed to Help Save the Planet. Instead It Unleashed a […]
Larry Fink was about to receive a “humanitarian of the year” award from an international charity. We asked him some tough questions about what being a humanitarian truly means. BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink was just given a major humanitarian award from an international disaster relief charity. But his company owns more fossil fuels than anyone […]
Sustainable funds in the climate era shouldn’t include coal companies like Peabody and pipeline giants Kinder Morgan, TransCanada and Enbridge. Don’t be fooled. BlackRock recently announced a new suite of “sustainable” exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in order to “help take sustainable investment mainstream”. Sounds like good news, right? We do need to make sustainable investing mainstream […]
A new scorecard finds large asset managers like BlackRock overwhelmingly fail to hold carbon-intensive companies accountable on climate change. Asset managers like BlackRock, who are dominant owners of the global economy, have enormous leverage over the companies they hold major stakes in. Yet on one of the fastest growing areas of “climate finance”, which is […]
Yesterday we put BlackRock on notice that they’ve got a big climate problem. Activists from our partners made a two pronged intervention yesterday on BlackRock. Starting our day at the Climate Week Sustainable Investment Forum by handing out bracelets and pamphlets asking “where is BlackRock” (who weren’t attending), we spent a few hours engaging BlackRock […]
As world leaders gathered in New York for Climate Week, activists launched a new campaign targeting BlackRock to face its climate problem and clean up its act. If we want to avoid the worst effects of climate change, the private sector will have to step up in an urgent, meaningful way. Today the Sierra Club, […]
Our partners at Friends of the Earth U.S. highlight how BlackRock is the largest US investor in this unsustainable industry that makes climate change worse. January, Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, released a statement touting the need for corporations to address climate change. Yet BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, has nearly $600 million […]
Ten global civil society organizations with over 70M members write to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink demanding action on BlackRock’s outsized contribution to climate change. We, the undersigned ten civil society organizations with members and supporters representing over 70 million citizens around the world, many of whom are BlackRock beneficial shareholders and customers, write to raise […]