The three largest American asset managers’ interest in pushing environment, social, and governance (ESG) policies has plummeted, according to a Thursday report.
BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard’s support for environmental shareholders proposals dropped significantly. State Street said it supported only six percent of environmental shareholder proposals in the first half of the year and only seven percent of social ones, which is a drop compared to 2023.
Vanguard said in August it did not back those resolutions, and BlackRock said it voted for four percent of the ESG proposals in the year prior to June, making a seven percent decline from a year before.
Bloomberg reported:
Together, the three money managers have immense influence during proxy season because they collectively own about 20% of the shares of all companies in the S&P 500, mainly through their enormous index-tracking funds. The drop in support is a stark turnaround from 2021, when they voted in favor of a record number of proposals that focused on topics such as climate change, workforce diversity and human rights. The so-called Big Three are taking a more circumspect view of such shareholder proposals, said Lindsey Stewart, director of stewardship research and policy at Morningstar Sustainalytics.
“It’s clear that the political climate, and the rise of anti-ESG resolutions and legislation, has played at least some role in the decline in proxy voting support. But the fact is, even some of the pro-ESG resolutions were badly worded or lacked a clear benefit to shareholders, so it’s not surprising that firms rejected many of these resolutions,” Stewart explained. […]
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