BlackRock’s Arbitrage Won’t Stop Climate Change: Kate Mackenzie
BlackRock’s $7 trillion in assets will be in better hands now that the firm has committed to factoring environmental shifts into its investment decisions. But the benefits can’t last.
A helicopter drops fire retardant over Balmoral, Australia, as a record heat wave fanned unprecedented bushfires.
Photographer: Peter Parks/AFP via Getty ImagesThe world’s biggest asset manager has a plan for avoiding the worst effects of climate change.
The way BlackRock Inc.’s chairman Larry Fink described it earlier this month, his decision to put climate change at the center of decision-making around the company’s $7 trillion portfolio is about giving clients better ways to manage risk. “Climate change is now becoming an investment risk,” Fink said in an interview on Bloomberg TV, making it no different than looking at the yield curve. “It was very clear to me now we need to bring forward better risk tools.”