Visit Majority Action’s Proxy Voting for a 1.5° World page here.

As top shareholders in the vast majority of S&P 500 companies, BlackRock and Vanguard have unrivaled power to push climate-critical industries to take measurable action to mitigate the catastrophic effects of climate change. Though BlackRock committed in January 2020 to put climate change at the center of its investment strategy, Majority Action’s 2021 Climate in the Boardroom report demonstrates that BlackRock notably increased support for climate-related resolutions in 2021, yet still supported 96% of management-proposed directors at S&P 500 companies in these three sectors, down only marginally from its level of support in 2020. This was largely driven by a dip in its support for directors at U.S. oil and gas companies, where BlackRock supported 91% of directors in 2021, down from 98% in 2020.

In addition, BlackRock has made major revisions to its voting policies, clarifying that votes against directors could be taken on the basis of climate-related business practices, not just disclosures. However, BlackRock’s policy implementation falls far short of peer and best-practice standards, failing to specify industry-specific standards for decarbonization, not linking director voting to performance along such standards, and not publishing company assessments against such standards.

Read Majority Action’s 2021 Climate in the Boardroom report here.

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130,000 SIGNATURES

Working with groups including the Sierra Club, Mothers Out Front, and Friends of the Earth, organized and delivered 130,000 signatures on petitions calling on BlackRock and other top asset managers to use their voting power responsibly on key climate 2019 shareholder votes.


DEMANDED ACCOUNTABILITY

Published annually, Majority Action’s latest report reviews the 2020 voting patterns of the 12 largest global asset managers on director elections, executive pay, and critical climate shareholder proposals and offers recommendations for asset owners and policymakers.