In a joint letter, feminist activists and women’s rights organisations have highlighted that along with many controversies BlackRock’s asset manager had investments in some of the world’s largest weapons sales companies and it ranked among the worst performers on corporate accountability.
Feminist activists and women’s rights organisations are celebrating UN Women’s informal (at the moment) decision to stop its collaboration with BlackRock. The decision comes after a broad mobilisation to push UN women changing its position through raising social media awareness, webinars and a joint letter.
In a letter that was signed over 500 organisations and individuals, it was stressed that BlackRock’s “climate and socially-destructive investments have been called out by activists, including Indigenous leaders. “ Furthermore, the letter highlighted that civil society watchdog groups identify BlackRock as among the worst performers on corporate accountability.
Those who advocated the end of the collaboration tweeting under the hashtag #BlockBlackRock underlined the multiple destructive decisions of the corporation. In a tweet, Marisol Ruiz stated that BlackRock “has voted against all shareholder resolutions relating to labor rights, including resolutions relating to corporate accountability for sexual harassment and closing the gender pay gap as well as against 47% of climate resolutions.”
The letter has listed four arenas where BlackRock has engaged with practices of that directly contradict feminist social and economic change agendas. These are its investment to fossil fuels; its holding of external private debt; its record on labour rights and its support for the military industrial complex.
Fossil fuels
In 2021, contradicting declarations that BlackRock would divest from fossil fuels (it is one of the world’s biggest investors in the world’s dirtiest fossil fuel companies), it put $85bn of assets managed into coal companies, including those seeking to identify and exploit new coal assets, breaching the decisive climate action required by the Paris Agreement.
External private debt
BlackRock is the leading known holder of external private debt in the global South.
Labor rights
BlackRock has voted against every single shareholder resolution relating to labor rights where it has shareholdings, including resolutions relating to corporate accountability for sexual harassment and closing the gender pay gap as well as against 47% of climate resolutions.
Militarization
Through its investment strategies, BlackRock is also a major supporter of the military industrial complex.
BlackRock’s Decisions Impact Women
The letter also highlighted how “gendered historical and structural inequalities ensure that women and people who face multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination are the ones who suffer the harshest consequences of the social, economic, ecological and political impact of the work of asset management firms that concentrate the world’s wealth into investments in fossil fuels, military and civilian weapons, and sovereign debt.”