The world’s largest asset manager voted against directors at six Calgary-based energy companies this 2020 proxy season, including Paramount Resources, Athabasca Oil and Ovintiv, which has moved its corporate headquarters to Denver. It also supported a climate-related shareholder proposal for Quebec City-based insurance company iA Financial, and voted against directors at Toronto-based Frontera Energy. (The Logic)

Talking point: BlackRock voted against 45 other companies in its portfolio and put another 191 firms “on watch” for “making insufficient progress integrating climate risk into their business models or disclosures,” according to a report released Tuesday. “These are the companies that face the most material financial risks in the transition to a low-carbon economy and, as a result, present the greatest risks to our clients’ investments,” said BlackRock spokesperson Curtis Chou in an email to The Logic. The voting record is the company’s most tangible follow-through to date on its January commitment to prioritize climate change in its investment strategy after its own shareholders pressured the US$6.8-trillion firm to mitigate its impact on climate change. Following BlackRock’s January letter, several institutional investors in Canada told The Logic they too planned to take further action on climate change.