JPMorgan, State Street, and BlackRock Abandon ESG Group Climate Action 100+
Climate Action is imploding. Good.
JPMorgan (JPMAM), State Street (SSGA), and BlackRock dropped out of Climate Action 100+, the controversial ESG (Environmental Social Governance) group that pushes companies to address climate change.
BREAKING: @BlackRock has followed the lead of JPMorgan and State Street by withdrawing their over $9 trillion in assets under management from Climate Action 100+, after facing increased antitrust scrutiny over their involvement with the climate cartel. https://t.co/1VyIqyr7RB
— Will Hild (@WillHild) February 15, 2024
Leslie has covered the ESG/bank situation many times, especially concerning BlackRock. That company is the last of the top five managers in the group.
The Financial Times said Climate Action “challenges” these “companies to reduce their carbon footprint.”
I call it bullying:
SSGA said Climate Action’s latest corporate engagement requirements had gone too far. These “phase 2” requirements, announced last year, shifted from pressuring companies on climate disclosures to pushing them to actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“SSGA has concluded the enhanced Climate Action 100+ phase 2 requirements for signatories are not consistent with our independent approach to proxy voting and portfolio company engagement,” SSGA said in a statement.
JPMAM said it had made a “significant investment” in its own stewardship team and corporate engagement. “Given these strengths and the evolution of its own stewardship capabilities, JPMAM has determined that it will no longer participate in Climate Action 100+ engagements.”
Republicans have been putting pressure on the companies and Climate Action 100+ to produce communications and documents to determine any violations of antitrust laws.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed Ceres after the company only handed over 299 documents.
But it also goes to the state level:
Texas, the leading US oil-producing state, has declared Climate Action 100+ to be anti-oil and blocked financial companies, including BlackRock, from doing business with the government.
Oklahoma, another oil producer, banned JPMorgan, BlackRock and others from doing business with the state in 2023.
Agricultural officials from 12 states launched probes into ESG investing practices at some big banks. The officials worry that the involvement could “impact food availability, lead to price increases, limit credit access for farmers, and have broad negative economic consequences.”
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti sued BlackRock, alleging the firm harmed consumers through ESG.
“We allege that BlackRock’s inconsistent statements about its investment strategies deprived consumers of the ability to make an informed choice,” explained Skrmetti.
Leslie also blogged how Europe has cooled its attitude towards ESG strategies due to energy reality.
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Comments
This move is a direct result of the increased pressure, scrutiny and lawsuits undertaken by sundry Republican AG’s. All credit to them.
These asset managers are brazenly violating their fiduciary duties to investors by obnoxiously and aggressively promoting and adhering to a fanatically Leftist/Dhimmi-crat political agenda that is diametrically opposed to the companies’ supposed mandate of achieving maximum investor returns.
Also, the loss of state business from Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and others, is a huge factor. This is proof of the common sense principle that companies will only change their leftist sermonizing and agenda-pushing if they are hit hard where it counts — reduced revenue and profits.
ESG is such a fraud. Biden’s green new deal has crushed the utilities sector, now the worst performing sector of the market. Trillion dollar infrastructure boondoggle. This is all biden’s fault.
Biden is a moron puppet with a bunch of lunatic progs fighting to ram their arms up his ass. He does whatever he is told… just ram another ice cream cone in his slobbering mouth.
Biden got his brain medicine confused with his dog joint health medicine cosequin. That’s why he walks funny and forgets things.
This is why it makes absolutely no difference who the dems decide to run this fall. The results will be exactly the same should they retain control of the White House.
Dah! They give up on Five Year Plan, comrads!
They have plan for new economy. What is goal you say? Make people rich and happy. List of people attached.
Not to worry, comrade — the Dhimmi-crats will introduce their “Great Leap Backward” takeover of all private investment accounts, soon.
In other news:
The House voted Thursday afternoon in favor of stripping the Biden administration’s authority to permit natural gas export projects in a blow to the president’s climate agenda.
In a 224-200 vote, the House approved the so-called Unlocking Domestic LNG Potential Act, with 215 Republicans and nine Democrats voting in favor.
BlackRock?? Sorry, but they are all-in on ESG.
Yeah ESG isn’t dead yet.
I just got a solicitation from Vanguard offering me a “choice” as to how i want my shares voted whenever I neglect to vote them myself:
1. Have a cross-fund panel at Vanguard vote them for me according to Vanguard’s best interests (this is the default, and has apparently been occurring up until now, to my surprise);
2. Have the individual fund’s board vote them for me according to the fund’s best interests (I can’t imagine there is significant difference between this and #1);
3. Have my shares voted according to the recommendation of a third-party ESG consulting group; and
4. Leave the shares unvoted or voted “abstain” (which is what I thought was happening until now, naive little me).
This is “choice?”
Note that if I choose anything but #4 and the Vanguard panjandra decide that ESG “is in the best interests of Vanguard,” I’m screwed any of the other three ways.
Where’s my choice for “vote exactly the opposite of the ESD group’s recommendation?” I guess this is their way of telling me that to get that choice, I must never neglect to vote everything myself.
Good to know. My Vanguard is very small but I was actually thinking about moving it because of all the political acromyn activity. I didn’t know how to let them know I want my account to make money, not posture based on garbage “science.”
I bought one of those mini PCs today and was amazed at how quick it went into power saving mode with the default settings.
I always set my stuff to NEVER have the screen go off and never hibernate- and when I went to do that on this version of windows it went on to lecture me about my carbon emissions and a picture of Greta Thurnberg popped up saying “how dare you!”
I made the last part up, but Jesus H Christ— the tech world is pretty far down the leftist cult tubes.
Please- some good attorney sue the living hell out of all these tech companies for co-employment again. ALL of THEM… they all do are doing it. It’s the biggest deepest payday ever for someone with the balls to go after them.
These new cars that I’ve read about are even worse, with the auto-engine shut-off feature that kicks in, when the car is stopped in traffic. I think the feature can be disabled, but, requires the driver making that choice every single time he/she goes for a drive.
I think this is also a legitimate safety issue, beyond the obnoxious, technological intrusion on an owner’s preferences.
Remember the self fastening seat belts in the 90s?
Because these companies withdrew from Climate Action 100 doesn’t mean they won’t have their own corporate initiatives to pressure borrowers and customers to implement climate change initiatives.
To quote the line from 300 – Helluva good start!
As has been mentioned, though, Progs never give up so we need to keep the pressure on them (and yes, as individuals we don’t have much pull here, but those state AGs sure got their attention).
It was a business decision borne of too much greed. They had found a niche market of rich, overeducated ninnies for which they could charge outrageous fees for a hot heaping load of BS. It was all marketing. They got greedy and tried to pull all their customers on board and it backfired. Eighty percent of their customers cared more for their wallets than the BS.
Its bene said, What can’t continue won’t.
great
but in the meantime the power structure of america has moved further left
and that is now normalized so the next tranche downward is just moments away
the gop has abandoned the middle class circa 1930 -2024
and the hurdles to americas pro western agenda is now firmly in the hands of
THE SQUAD
All board members, directors and executive management from all companies that embrace DEI / ESG should be personally sued into bankruptcy for breech of their fiduciary responsibilities.