Here are BlackRock’s latest pirouettes on ESGs
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink says an "ugly" narrative has been created around ESG investing, and that the company will work to change it: It has already ramped up lobbyists. All the details
Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, the largest investment firm in the world, thinks that an "ugly" narrative has developed around ESG investing that "is creating great polarization" in society.
THE ATTACKS ON BLACKROCK (EA FINK)
ESG refers to those sustainability factors that evaluate the environmental ( environmental ), social ( social ) and management ( governance ) impact of an investment. In recent years, following the greater attention to "sustainability" and to the profit opportunities linked to the ecological transition, this acronym has assumed great importance within the financial world, but it has also attracted great criticism .
Interviewed by Bloomberg during the Davos World Economic Forum, Fink said that “for the first time in my professional career, now the attacks are personal. They are trying to demonize the issues” associated with ESG.
WHO CRITICISM OF ESG
For some years now, in his letters to international managing directors, Fink has been dwelling a lot on the risks associated with climate change and on the need to accelerate the energy transition towards low-emission sources and fuels. Yet BlackRock is not only criticized by conservative circles, who accuse it of having embraced a political agenda by overshadowing economic returns, but also by progressive circles more sensitive to the ecological issue: according to them, the company would be "green" only in appearance and not in reality, as it continues to invest in assets related to fossil fuels.
ESG, for example, is not liked at all by Elon Musk, who also leads a company – Tesla – which deals with electric cars and solar energy: on Twitter he recently wrote the letter S in the acronym stands for "satanic".
The S in ESG stands for Satanic
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) January 16, 2023
“CHANGING THE NARRATIVE”
Larry Fink told Bloomberg that “the narrative [on ESG investing ] is ugly, the narrative is creating this great polarization. If you actually read the letters to CEOs I've written in the past, I'm talking about a transition” from the fossil fuel industry and not an immediate detachment.
“We are doing everything we can to change the narrative,” said the BlackRock administrator. The company, in addition to having invested large sums in 2022 for the financing of political campaigns in the United States, has increased the number of lobbyists in Washington, where the US Congress is based, and in Texas, which has accused BlackRock and some banks of boycotting of the oil sector, by prohibiting state agencies and governments from entering into contracts there.
“SELLING HOPE”
Fink anticipated that in the next few letters to company executives he will focus on the "concept of hope". BlackRock, he explained, "is a company that tries to sell hope because who is it that would bet on a thirty-year bond unless they believe that in thirty years something will be better [than today, ed ]?".
As of the end of December 2022, BlackRock managed assets with a combined value of $8.5 trillion.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/economia/ecco-le-ultime-piroette-di-blackrock-sugli-esg/ on Fri, 27 Jan 2023 06:31:14 +0000.