Reports Archive - BlackRock's Big Problem
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How the financial industry funds destruction

Research and reports detailing how BlackRock and Big Finance are fuelling a global crisis – and how they can lead change.

One Year On: BlackRock Still Addicted to Fossil Fuels

One year after BlackRock’s CEO promised sustainability would be at the heart of investment decisions, a report by NGOs Reclaim Finance and Urgewald has revealed that BlackRock remains a massive investor in coal companies, even in those with expansion plans related to coal. The analysis unveils huge gaps in BlackRock’s policy, both in its coal policy and in the complete absence of a policy on other fossil fuels.

Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Are Dominating Climate Policies During COVID-19

New research from InfluenceMap shows the oil and gas sector to have dominated climate-related policy battles throughout COVID-19 crisis. Interventions from the industry seeking deregulation and support for fossil fuels in recovery packages have drowned out pro-climate interventions from the non-fossil corporate sector.

The New Money Trust: How Large Money Managers Control Our Economy and What We Can Do About It

This paper will discuss the concerns that the outsized growth of the fund industry, especially its three largest participants, poses for corporate governance, competition, and financial market stability. It then explores some policy solutions to address the financial risks and anticompetitiveimpacts of large asset managers.

How Dodd Frank Can Address Wall Street’s Role In The Climate Crisis

In this paper, Graham Steele argues that a sustainable shift to green energy requires a significant reallocation of this capital and that the Dodd-Frank Act provides the regulatory tools to require financial institutions to internalize the financial risks associated with lending and investments that drive climate change.

The BlackRock Model: How the EU is choosing the wrong path to prevent banks from destroying the planet

How the EU is choosing the wrong path to prevent banks from destroying the planet

Bailed Out And Propped Up

An analysis by BailoutWatch, Public Citizen, and Friends of the Earth reveals the fossil fuel industry received between $10.4 billion and $15.2 billion in direct economic relief from federal efforts under President Donald Trump to sustain the economy through the pandemic.

Human Rights Briefing: Palantir Technologies

The Investor Alliance is issuing this Human Rights Risk Briefing for investors in Palantir Technologies, a privately-owned U.S. data mining and software company that is reportedly seeking to raise “significant funding” from private investors.

Fueling the Fire

This report finds the fossil fuel industry not only has been a primary driver of climate change but also has harmed the health of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) communities for decades and has made these populations highly vulnerable to severe illness and death from COVID-19.

2018 Asset Manager Climate Scorecard

A new report analyzing the world’s thirteen largest asset managers’ U.S. proxy voting in carbon-intensive industries reveals that they’re exerting limited and uneven influence over management, despite calls from shareholders to de-carbonize corporate business models.

BlackRock’s Sustainable ETFs: Green business or Greenwash

Wall Street’s biggest climate destroyer offers sustainable investments – but what are they really selling?

Climate Funds And Fossil Fuels (EU)

Think tank Influencemap analysed data from 118 funds marketed with “an explicit climate theme”, with a collective $18bn (£14.4bn) in assets, and found that some had exposure to fossil fuels “with intensities comparable to mainstream funds”.

Sustainable Finance Policy Engagement

This research has mapped out intensive lobbying on European sustainable finance policy, led by industry groups representing the finance and corporate (real economy) sectors. Whilst a small number of financial institutions have pushed for ambitious policy, the majority have remained silent or stated only high-level support.

Voting Matters

Climate change is one of the highest priorities facing investors. In this report, we’ve examined how 57 of the world’s largest asset managers voted on 65 shareholder resolutions linked to climate change. While there is encouraging improvement when it comes to voting for climate change resolutions, many still shy away from holding companies account. Investors voting power is the most powerful tool they have, it is vital that all investors use it.

Point Of No Returns

ShareAction examined 75 of the most influential asset managers worldwide on responsible investment governance, climate change, biodiversity and human rights.

Climate in the Boardroom

This report shows BlackRock and Vanguard voted against critical shareholder resolutions, torpedoing efforts to fight the climate crisis.

BlackRock’s Big Deforestation Problem

This paper examines the role of BlackRock, the world’s largest fund manager with $6.5 trillion USD of assets under management, in financing the global crisis of deforestation and land conflict.

Forests and Human Rights: Principles for Asset Managers

The best way to protect the world’s tropical forests is to recognize and respect the legal and customary rights and self-determination of Indigenous and tribal peoples and local communities who live in and care for forests.

Complicity in Destruction

This new edition of Complicity in Destruction III, published by the Association of Brazil’s Indigenous Peoples (APIB) in partnership with Amazon Watch, reveals how a network of leading international financial institutions is linked to conflicts on Indigenous lands, illegal deforestation, land grabbing, the weakening of environmental protections, and the production and export of conflict commodities.

Doubling Down on Deforestation

This report examines the ways in which the Big Three have “doubled down on deforestation”. Finally, this report offers recommendations for urgent actions the Big Three can and must take to uphold their responsibility, not only to their beneficiaries, but to our planetary surviva

The Passives Problem and Paris Goals: How Index Investing Trends Threaten Climate Action

This paper aims to bring the contours of the passive investing problem into focus. We have used the best available research to summarize big trends, crystallize strategic questions,and point to possible solutions.