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Mr. Franz-Josef Schafhausen, former Director General Climate Change, European and International Affairs, Federal German Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety

BlackRock under renewed pressure to support climate action

9th May 2019 by CMIA

‘The world’s leading investor in climate destruction can no longer evade responsibility’.

A coalition of groups led by Majority Action has delivered over 129,000 petition signatures to BlackRock in an effort to force the world’s largest asset manager to use its voting powers to force companies to act responsibly on climate.

The petition calls on BlackRock, Vanguard and Fidelity to use their voting powers responsibly by supporting key climate-related shareholder resolutions and voting against directors who are not serving long-term investors’ best interests at nine major upcoming shareholder meetings.

The latest push comes hot on the heels of an environmental campaign labelled ‘BlackRock’s Big Problem’, which criticised the group last year for being the “largest owner of fossil fuel companies and single largest contributor to climate destruction”. Many of the signatories of the latest petition were involved with this campaign at the time.

This time, groups are demanding that BlackRock support key shareholder resolutions on climate change and political transparency at upcoming AGMs held by such firms as Amazon, ExxonMobil, Ford and General Motors over the coming weeks.

The petition criticised major asset managers like BlackRock for voting down climate shareholder resolutions year after year, despite claiming they will use their powers to ensure companies act responsibly on climate.

According to the groups involved, BlackRock supported 99% of management-nominated directors at US fossil fuel companies, while voting for just 10% of key climate shareholder resolutions.

Eli Kasargod-Staub, executive director of Majority Action, said: “With control of millions of votes, Larry Fink has unrivalled power to push corporate America to move forward to stop climate change and protect long-term shareholder value.

“While BlackRock claims to care that companies act responsibly on climate, it is obvious that private dialogue is not yielding results nearly as fast or as ambitious as what is needed to match the urgency of this crisis. Shareholders are clear that the time for engagement without meaningful progress and action must come to an end.”

“It’s time for Larry Fink to put up or shut up,” added Lukas Ross, senior policy analyst at Friends of the Earth.

“Instead of protecting the world’s worst polluters, BlackRock needs to start using its shareholder power to protect future generations. The world’s leading investor in climate destruction can no longer evade responsibility.”

Carolyn Fiddler, Daily Kos Communications Director noted BlackRock and other major fund groups have the opportunity to be responsible stewards of more than just people’s retirement savings, “they can can help secure our future by taking a concrete step to combat climate catastrophe and setting the stage for others to do the same”.

Source: http://bit.ly/BRockCC