Blackrock’s voting actions in Europe this year signify a half-baked, management-biased approach that falls far short of the strategy it outlined a few months ago.
Joint Article By Reclaim Finance, Urgewald & BlackRock’s Big Problem
In his annual letter this year, Blackrock’s CEO Larry Fink declared once again that ‘climate risk is investment risk’. Ahead of the 2021 voting season, the asset management titan also published a memo setting out what it would be expecting from polluting companies. After criticism of BlackRock’s oversized role in fuelling the climate crisis, the promise it undertook to take voting action against directors and to support shareholders proposals based on climate considerations (1) established high expectations.
In the end, BlackRock didn’t come close to matching its rhetoric. The 2021 shareholder season in Europe shows that BlackRock continues to vote in a manner inconsistent with climate science, and is failing to force the required action among major polluters.
