Asset Managers

How do Asset Managers contribute to climate chaos?

Asset managers pool massive amounts of money from investors, wealthy individuals and institutional accounts like pension funds and university endowments. They invest this money in the stocks and bonds of corporations, including those in the fossil fuel industry, to get steady returns for their clients. Asset managers make their fortunes by charging their clients fees to manage their money.

They exert influence by amassing shareholding stakes in corporations across nearly every industry, as well as deploying their armies of lobbyists and revolving door connections to promote their interests and suppress climate legislation. Moreover, their multi-millionaire and billionaire CEOs occupy board positions at centers of social power, such as prominent academic and cultural institutions, often using these positions to advance their agendas and burnish their image.

The biggest asset managers are the top shareholders of most major publicly-traded corporations. In 2020, the “Big Three” asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – were, when combined, the largest shareholder in an astounding 88 percent of firms across the S&P 500. Not surprisingly, they are also the top shareholders of the world’s top polluters, including oil majors Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips.

Want a deeper dive?

Read “The Asset Manager Power Structure and the Climate Crisis” and learn how a handful of powerful asset managers control a huge chunk of the fossil fuel industry through massive shareholding.

TIAA-Divest!

TIAA-Divest! campaigns to pressure the $1.2 trillion retirement and financial services firm TIAA to divest from fossil fuels, and stop land grabs and deforestation. TIAA-Divest! educates and mobilizes TIAA’s primary participants, higher ed and health industry professionals, to take action to stop TIAA’s investment in climate destruction. 

Working with finance professionals and researchers like IEEFA and the Sunrise Project, TIAA-Divest! has uncovered the extent of TIAA’s fossil fuel assets as well as its ongoing greenwashing campaign. TIAA’s holdings include more than $78 billion in fossil fuel investments. TIAA has financed coal-fired power plants in the US and overseas and is one of the largest investors in Adani Ports, the notorious coal mining company. TIAA-Divest’s own research also revealed that TIAA has ties to land grabbing and destructive industrial agricultural practices in the Brazilian Cerrado and other critical habitats around the world, routinely violating human rights.