The Relentless Campaign Against Climate Action & ESG Investing
BlackRock has been put at the center of a growing campaign against climate action and ESG investing.
BlackRock has been put at the center of a growing campaign against climate action and ESG investing.
We applaud BlackRock’s call for private companies to be required to disclose climate risk and approve of its agreement with the broad outlines of the SEC’s initiative. However, the asset manager’s proposed amendments would allow BlackRock and other Wall Street titans to continue concealing the enormous risks posed by their continued financing of fossil fuel industry expansion.
The Race to Zero campaign, a U.N.-backed initiative, released updated, strengthened criteria last week. BlackRock, as a signatory of the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative (NZAM), is a member of Race to Zero and therefore is directly affected by the updated criteria.
Larry Fink has said time and again — for example in his last two letters to CEOs — that the energy transition is already underway and the only question remaining is “will you lead or be led?” The updated Race to Zero criteria is the roadmap for that leadership and BlackRock can and should step up to lead.
BlackRock has established itself as an asset management firm that understands the inextricable links between climate change and fiduciary responsibility. Larry Fink famously said in his 2020 letter to CEOs: “We focus on sustainability not because we’re environmentalists, but because we are capitalists and fiduciaries to our clients.”
Two years on, BlackRock is backsliding from its leadership position as a far-sighted investor with its feet firmly planted in the reality that climate risk is economic risk by failing to meet the urgency of the moment.
The biggest financiers of fossil fuels face some tough questions this shareholder season.
BlackRock must take a stand this shareholder season.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the most immediate example of violence financed by the fossil fuel economy, but it is only one demonstration of a consistent pattern.
Last week, an extensive piece of research that looks at the financiers behind the world’s coal companies revealed that BlackRock and Vanguard are still the leading investors in coal.