The hedge fund industry has no shortage of aggressive, in-your-face players, but few are as tough as Chris Hohn. The British billionaire takes the typical playbook to new levels—scuttling deals, pushing to remove bosses, and battering companies with litigation and threats. One opponent was so peeved after losing a boardroom battle with Hohn that he…
Category: climate change
Lloyds set to halve carbon emissions it finances in 10 years | Business | The Guardian
Environmental campaigners have welcomed a pledge by Lloyds Banking Group to halve the amount of carbon emissions it finances through personal and business loans by 2030. The commitment comes as lenders face heightened criticism over their role in fuelling the climate crisis by funding projects and companies that rely heavily on fossil fuels. Lloyds did…
Can Wall Street save us from climate change? (Fat chance.) – The Washington Post
Robert Samuelson is very skeptical about Larry Fink’s interest in or ability to do something to address climate change. To be sure, none of this precludes the possibility that companies may make significant advances involving climate change — whether to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or to improve energy efficiency. But there are two overriding realities…
Why Fossil Fuel Companies Are Reckoning With Climate Change | Time
As concerns grow over the existential challenges posed by climate change, Shell must grapple with its own existential crisis: How should a company that generates most of its profits by serving the world’s enormous appetite for oil navigate a long-term future in which shifting political and economic tides threaten to make fossil fuels obsolete? The…
A Sense of Climate Urgency Takes Hold in Davos – Bloomberg
Davos is cloaked in white, but its agenda is green. Environmentalism—fighting climate change in particular—has emerged as one of the biggest priorities of the World Economic Forum annual meeting…The biggest obstacle to fixing the planet’s climate is free-riding—shirking efforts to fight climate change while benefiting from the efforts others make. The repeated interaction with fellow…
Blackrock’s Larry Fink: Letter to CEOs
Blackrock’s Larry Fink wrote to the portfolio company CEOs to tell them that investors insist on more from them when it comes to climate change, from disclosure to strategy. Bottom line (literally): “Climate risk is investment risk.” Here is the letter: Dear CEO, As an asset manager, BlackRock invests on behalf of others, and I…
Half of UK universities have committed to divest from fossil fuel | Environment | The Guardian
Half of UK universities have signed up to divest from fossil fuels in what campaigners say is a significant blow to the “social licence” of big oil. Seventy-eight of the UK’s 154 public universities have joined the divestment campaign, either divesting or pledging to divest hundreds of millions from the fossil fuel industry. Although some…
BlackRock’s Larry Fink: Climate change risk worse than Great Recession
BlackRock Chairman and CEO Larry Fink is warning that the financial risks of climate change are bigger than any crisis he’s experienced in his career on Wall Street. “We don’t have a Federal Reserve to stabilize the world like in the five or six financial crises that occurred during my 40 years in finance,” the…
BlackRock Joins World’s Largest Investor Group on Climate Change – WSJ
BlackRock Inc. said Thursday that it has joined Climate Action 100+, the world’s largest group of investors by assets pressuring companies to act on climate change, following criticism that the money manager hasn’t done enough to move the needle. “We believe evidence of the impact of climate risk on investment portfolios is building rapidly and…
Green America’s Sample Letter to the SEC: Protect Investor Rights that Support People & the Planet
To: Vanessa Countryman, Secretary Securities & Exchange Commission 100 F St., NE Washington, DC 20549 Re: File Number S7-23-19 We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned about the need to build an economy that will be successful over the long term. This means we need to ensure that social, environmental, and corporate governance issues facing corporations…
