The world’s largest asset-management firm voted in favour of just four per cent of the 493 proposals its portfolio companies submitted on environmental and social issues in the 12 months leading up to June 30. That’s down from seven per cent for the year before and 20 per cent in 2022. Support for governance issues increased from 11 per cent to 21 per cent year over year. (Bloomberg)

Talking point: The dwindling support for environmental and social initiatives is a reversal for the asset manager. Its CEO Larry Fink pledged in 2020 to increase its ESG-focused exchange-traded funds and urged portfolio companies to ramp up their climate-risk disclosure. Two years later, however, BlackRock became the target of an emerging anti-ESG movement led by Republican lawmakers in the U.S., with Florida pulling US$2 billion in state assets from the manager. BlackRock argued that many of the proposals it voted against in the past year lacked merit, were overly prescriptive and threatened long-term financial interests.