Companies that do not adopt sustainable business strategies can expect less investment as shareholders grow more focused on topics like climate change, BlackRock Inc CEO Laurence Fink said on Thursday. Fink said he has been telling corporate boards they will see “money moving in to more sustainable strategies. And if you’re not part of that construct you’re just going to see less equity demand for your shares.”
Fink has made similar comments in the past but a recent report from Morningstar Inc showed how investors have followed his description, with BlackRock iShares ETFs taking in nearly half of the $51 billion in net new deposits that U.S. sustainable funds received in 2020. The latter figure was almost a quarter of total U.S. fund flows.
Fink said he does not support the divesture of companies with high carbon emissions, as some have urged, since the companies could still operate. “To me that’s greenwashing,” he said, adding that “If a public company sells off a lot of their hydrocarbon business to a private entity, the world doesn’t change.”
Source: Reuters
Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Nick Macfie
