The world’s largest fund manager – Blackrock – has announced the company plans to increase its sustainable assets to $1 trillion within a decade. That can buy a lot of change!
The company aims to become a leader in sustainable investing by putting a chunk of its total $7 trillion in assets to work in endeavors addressing climate change and other challenges. To this end, Blackrock has also pledged to stop investing in companies where one-quarter or more of revenues come from thermal coal.
“Even if only a fraction of the projected impacts (of climate change) is realised, this is a much more structural, long-term crisis,” Blackrock CEO Larry Fink said in a letter to executives last week. “We believe that sustainable investing is the strongest foundation for client portfolios going forward.”
To address the crisis, Blackrock plans to “push companies to disclose their climate risk according to standards set by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure (TCFD),” according to a Financial Times article. Black Rock also last week joined the Climate Action 100+, a group of more than 350 asset owners and managers who call on companies to align their business with the Paris climate agreement.
You might remember that Mr. Fink last year encouraged chief executives to move beyond “shareholder primacy” to a more robust accounting of their companies’ effects on a wider range of stakeholders, including environment impacts on local communities.