Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager, has said it won’t stop investing in coal, oil and gas, despite outwardly backing higher environmental standards.
In response to a letter about transitioning to net zero carbon emissions, Blackrock said it does not back fossil fuel exclusion policies and rejected calls to halt new investments in coal, oil and gas.
“BlackRock’s role in the transition is as a fiduciary to our clients – it is not to engineer a specific decarbonization outcome in the real economy,” when asked if it supported the International Energy Association’s (IEA) ‘no new investment’ in fossil fuels scenario.
“We expect to remain long-term investors on behalf of our clients in carbon-intensive sectors,” it added.
BlackRock’s membership of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) led to its being questioned over its net zero transitions by the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), alongside fellow fund managers Vanguard and HSBC.
Vanguard said it “does not have a firm-wide policy to divest or retire fossil fuel assets.”
Blackrock's reply to the EAC is seemingly at odds with its strong advocacy of ESG standards in the firms its funds invest in, something that has caused a backlash among some clients.
Only this week there were reports that one, the Missouri State Treasurer, had pulled a US$500mln pension fund mandate due to Blackrock's "woke political agenda".