The September Swarm against BlackRock is on! Activists gathered in Palo Alto and Boston and called on BlackRock to stop funding the climate emergency, forest destruction and respect indigenous rights. Partners and allies in Boston also delivered over 100,000 signatures to the biggest asset managers (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard) demanding they adopt robust deforestation […]
Watch the Actionar curated by Climate Finance Action and follow along below to take action to Defund Deforestation! Then, join the September Swarm on BlackRock and get ready for the grand finalé – the Stop Funding Tar Sands Day of Action on October 2! We know the Big 3 see us and hear us! […]
By Pendle Marshall- Hallmark | Amazon Watch September 4, 2020 – The fires occurring in rainforests all over the world are not wildfires. They are set by criminal arsonists seeking to clear land to make way for agribusiness interests. Alarmingly, fires on Indigenous lands have increased by 77 percent compared to the same period from […]
With its new contract from the U.S. Federal Reserve to run the bond buyback program which aims to prevent the economy from crashing due to the pandemic, BlackRock has become, observers argue, what Goldman was leading up to the financial crash of 2008 — too big to fail, too big to regulate, and deeply embedded […]
by Jeff Conant, Friends of the Earth and Moira Birss, Amazon Watch After years of pressure from shareholders and legislators, BlackRock finally seemed ready to acknowledge the climate crisis in January, when it announced it would “place climate at the center of its investment strategy.” On the surface, the move seemed to send a clear […]
In January, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink committed to put climate change at the center of the firm’s investment strategy. Even as financial markets reel during the COVID-19 pandemic, BlackRock reinforced that it will continue to hold directors accountable for climate action. This shareholder season is a critical test to see if BlackRock will make good […]
Thanks in part to supporters like you, JPMorgan Chase is bowing to pressure and just announced Lee Raymond, historic climate denier and former CEO of ExxonMobil, will be demoted from his board leadership role! After a month of public pressure, on Friday JPMorgan Chase quietly announced that Raymond will step down as Lead Independent Director […]
Frontline activists New York Communities for Change, Mothers Out Front and CODEPINK: Women For Peace teamed with Rainforest Action Network, Friends of the Earth U.S. and Sierra Club and others and moved BlackRock on climate in the last 18 months – but the $7 TRILLION under its management is still driving the climate crisis. Watch […]
On Tuesday, March 31, TC Energy (formerly Trans Canada) announced its decision to move forward with the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. This move comes after a decade of protests in North America, a series of legal battles challenging the construction of the controversial pipeline, and political reversals in the US. More importantly, the […]
By Eli Kasargod-Staub, Executive Director of Majority Action (April 1/2020) The upcoming shareholder meeting season is unprecedented in an absolutely unprecedented time. We are in the middle of a global pandemic that threatens millions of lives and livelihoods. The COVID-19 crisis is playing out against the backdrop of the existential threats of escalating climate change. […]
Today, the Federal Reserve announced that it hired BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, to shepherd several debt-buying programs on behalf of the U.S. central bank as it works to revive the economy from the impacts of the spread of coronavirus. The programs include purchases of mortgage-backed security purchases, new investment-grade bonds, and already-issued investment-grade […]
Tens of millions of acres of Indigenous Amazonian territories and isolated rainforest are slated to be auctioned off for new oil drilling in the western Amazon, threatening the most biodiverse rainforest in the world and the survival of the indigenous peoples who live in it, and paving the way for catastrophic global climate change. The […]
Commentary by Gaurav Madan on 26 February 2020 A forest in Brazil is set on fire to make way for soy plantations. An oil pipeline leak in South Dakota threatens the drinking water of local communities. A Honduran family seeking a better life is tracked by immigration agents and locked up in a detention center. […]
Last week, the globe’s leading financial newspaper, Financial Times, covered the work of all the people working to stop the financiers of climate chaos. The FT wrote: After years focusing on oil, gas and mining companies, campaigners concerned about global warming are turning their attention to the world of finance. They hope that public pressure […]
By Amazon Watch and Friends of the Earth US (February 7, 2020) Just weeks after releasing a new set of policies on climate change and sustainability, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, quietly published this week a new statement on its approach to engagement with agribusiness — the second leading driver of the climate crisis […]
Today, after more than a year of increasing pressure from climate activists, investors, legislators, and thought leaders, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, in his highly-anticipated annual letter to CEOs and to clients, announced a sweeping new set of policies which aim to put climate change and sustainability at the center of BlackRock’s business model. BlackRock is […]
We know you share our overwhelming concern for the future of our children, our grandchildren, and children around the world. We write to you today, ahead of your 2020 Annual Letter to CEOs, to ask you to commit to actions that will ensure a livable world now and into the future. What you say sets […]
Dear Laurence D. Fink, You have been married to your wife, Lori Fink, since the 70s, when you would have been around my age. You have three sons. Your mother was an English professor, your father owned a shoe store. You attended UCLA with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. You’re from California, like […]
You might the above statement about asset managers must have come from one of our campaign partners, right? Nope. The narrative that BlackRock is both a) a major player in making the climate crisis worse, and b) could do something about it without much struggle is spreading all over. Former Vice President and co-founder of […]