You may have read about the rush of big banks and asset managers leaving the climate hysteria pushing Net Zero Alliance, an organization that promotes ESG standards in business. Of the big money managers, Vanguard left the alliance a while ago, and State Street is making plans to do so. Will BlackRock, the company viewed by many as the face of the ESG movement, also abandon the effort? Charles Gasparino reports in the New York Post:
BlackRock — which for years has courted controversy with its focus on so-called ESG, or Environmental Social Governance investing — is considering an exit of the so-called “Net Zero” coalition of top corporations who pledge to reach zero-carbon emissions by 2050, The Post has learned.
The investment giant led by billionaire CEO Larry Fink is poised for a pivot from dictates of the United Nations-sponsored “Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative” as pressure grows on big corporations to reverse their woke business agendas. It comes as others have announced plans to leave a sister UN coalition for mega banks. In recent days, the nation’s largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, plus Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, said they are dropping their membership from the UN climate coalition.
BlackRock’s likely departure is more significant. The world’s largest investment fund, with more than $10 trillion in assets under management, was a leader in ESG investing, with its top executives including Fink evangelizing on the need to use the company’s investing might to force corporations to reduce their carbon footprint. A political backslash recently forced Fink and BlackRock to reverse course on ESG and now other big ESG asset managers are doing so as well.
Action Line: Has Larry Fink changed his mind on climate change? Did he ever care to begin with? Was BlackRock genuinely trying to impact the world, or was it all about the higher fees it could charge on ESG funds? Now that BlackRock is off on the next big fund craze, with the “greatest launch in ETF history” of its Bitcoin fund, maybe it doesn’t need ESG anymore. Hopefully, BlackRock will remember to turn the lights off when it leaves the Net Zero Alliance. When you want to talk about your investment future and not simply follow the big asset managers from fund fad to fund fad, I’m here. Email me at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com. And sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter.
