Sandy Brian Hager Profile picture
Feb 4 10 tweets 4 min read
The Big Three asset managers - BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street - have vowed to tackle climate change and support sustainable finance. In a new @cityperc working paper, Joseph Baines and I take a closer look at their climate agenda bit.ly/3gskpeA [1/10]
We do this by examining the Big Three's relationships with the publicly-owned companies Carbon Majors - a small group of fossil fuels, cement and mining companies responsible for the bulk of industrial greenhouse gas emissions [2/10]
theguardian.com/sustainable-bu…
Our research reveals the centrality of the Big Three in the Carbon Major ownership network. BlackRock and Vanguard are the most prominent owners of these companies, State Street is the fourth largest [3/10]
Crucially, we find that although the Big Three are a growing source of equity financing for the Carbon Majors, the Carbon Majors are a shrinking component of investment portfolios of the Big Three. This amplifies the Big Three's power (you need us, we don't need you) [4/10]
We then examine the proxy voting record of the Big Three at Carbon Major AGMs. We find that the Big Three tend to oppose environmental resolutions but overwhelmingly support management when it comes to dividend payments & stock buybacks, CEO pay, director elections [5/10]
A fine-gained analysis shows that the combined voting decisions of the Big Three are more likely to lead to the failure of environmental resolutions and that, whether they succeed or fail, these resolutions tend to be narrow in scope and piecemeal in nature [6/10]
Our most shocking findings have to do with the Big Three's ESG funds. Not only do the ESG funds invest in many of the same Carbon Majors as their non-ESG funds, they tend to vote the same way at Carbon Major AGMs [7/10]
So what are we to make of the Big Three's recent embrace of climate advocacy? The term "greenwashing" is too benign. Instead, we side Tariq Fancy, BlackRock's former sustainable investing head, who described it as a "deadly distraction" [8/10]
cnbc.com/2021/08/24/bla…
At best, we argue that the climate advocacy of shareholders needs to be seen as a minor component of a wider state-led strategy to swiftly dismantle carbon-intensive energy systems and rapidly expand renewable energy infrastructures [9/10]
With the looming threat of climate breakdown we simply cannot afford any more distractions [10/10]

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Sandy Brian Hager

Sandy Brian Hager Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @sanha926

Jan 25, 2021
In our latest for @RIPEJournal Joseph Baines and I examine some of the most important but under-researched corporations in the world today: the commodity trading firms. How do we make sense of these firms and their role in ecological devastation? [1/8] tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Some claim that financialization has encouraged a short-term outlook in the sector, with dire social and ecological consequences. But evidence for these claims is patchy, so part of our research involved mapping financialization metrics for the top commodity trading firms [2/8]
The evidence is mixed. For example, we find that commodity traders have become less financialized in the source of profits (financial income), but more financialized in the destination of profits (shareholder payouts) [3/8]
Read 8 tweets
Jan 6, 2021
My latest @NPEjournal article with Joseph Baines has just been published. COVID has amplified longstanding concerns about rising corporate debt. But how do the debt burdens of large non-financial corporations compare to their smaller counterparts? [1/8]
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
Our findings point to a 'great debt divergence' in the US in recent decades. Large corporations increased their leverage and decreased their debt servicing burdens. Even though smaller corporations de-leveraged, their debt servicing burdens increased [2/8]
Over roughly the same period, the profit margins of large corporations doubled while smaller corporations faced severe losses. In relative terms, our analysis indicates a rapid concentration of power in favour of large firms [3/8]
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

:(