NZAM has 290 signatories, including BlackRock, State Street, JPMorgan Asset Management and London-based Legal & General, have enormous clout they can use to pressure energy companies into climate commitments. The signatories represent about $66 trillion in assets; the loss of Vanguard, the world’s second-largest asset manager, puts a $7 trillion dent in that figure.
Vanguard said it is leaving the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative, an international carbon-reduction pact that has become a lightning rod for criticism of environmentally motivated investing.
The move comes as Vanguard has been facing intensifying political pressure over its ESG initiatives—efforts to offer investments aligned with certain environmental, social, or corporate governance factors.
In late November, a coalition of 13 state attorneys general filed a motion with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission asking it to block Vanguard’s request to extend its authorization to purchase large quantities of stock in public utilities.
The attorneys general represent solidly Republican states, many with large fossil-fuel industries. They argued that Vanguard’s public commitments to combating climate change, including its participation in the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative, “have at the very least created the appearance that Vanguard has breached its promises to the commission by engaging in environmental activism and using its financial influence to manipulate the activities of the utility companies in its portfolio.”
They asked FERC for a hearing to determine whether Vanguard’s extension request is in the public interest.
Even though Vanguard has bowed out of the climate initiative, which sets 2050 as a target for attaining net-zero carbon emissions, the attorneys general appear unlikely to withdraw their motion.
ZeroHedge: https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/vanguard-quits-climate-alliance-major-blow-woke-investing
I have always had Vanguard stock and was concerned about them getting woken into the false agenda of man made climate change, and green energy before we have the knowledge developed to transition to that stage. (My background, — Economics major and Geology minor).
Probably the jury’s still out on them. What’s sad is that in a survey of its personal investors, 2/3 of Vanguard respondents said they don’t know enough about NZAM Initiative to have an opinion!
What this fails to consider is that Vanguard is effectively owned by BlackRock and State Street. They all own large portions of each other’s shares.
Vanguard’s having to relent on the NZAM/ESG/woke idiocy is an encouraging sign. It shows that people like Gates, Fauci, Biden, Trudeau, and even Der Schwabenklaus may talk a big game, but they don’t automatically or easily achieve all of their dystopic goals. We must keep fighting and sabotaging their self-serving plans because the globalists are not all-powerful, invincible, or even likeable.