Such proposals may not promote long-term shareholder value, it said.
The asset manager said there had been a “marked increase” in
environmental and social shareholder proposals “of varying quality”
coming to a vote this year, attributing this at least in part to the US
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s revised guidance on
shareholder proposals.
It said it had identified several themes of shareholder proposals
that warranted special attention, including ceasing providing finance to
fossil fuel companies, requiring alignment of bank and energy company
business models solely to a specific 1.5⁰C scenario, and setting
absolute scope 3 greenhouse gas emission reduction targets.
“Although it is still early in the shareholder meeting season, we
note that many of these more prescriptive climate-related proposals are
attracting lower levels of investor support,” BlackRock said in a memo.
“In such cases, we also note that global proxy advisors ISS and Glass
Lewis have been recommending that shareholders not support overly
prescriptive or constraining proposals.”
The asset manager also said that reducing reliance on Russian energy
in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine would impact the net-zero
transition. There would be “a need for companies that invest in both
traditional and renewable sources of energy and we believe the companies
that do that effectively will produce attractive returns for our
clients,” it said.
UK taskforce consults on private sector climate transition plans
The UK Transition Plan Taskforce (TPT) has launched a call for
evidence on key principles and elements of a credible climate transition
plan to inform the development of a sector-neutral framework for such
plans.
The framework is supposed to inform new requirements from the
government for financial institutions and listed companies to publish
robust transition plans that detail how they will decarbonise as the UK
moves towards a net-zero economy by 2050.
The call for evidence is TPT’s first publication after it was recently launched by Treasury minister John Glen.
Responses will also help inform the taskforce’s approach to
developing sectoral templates to be used by firms from certain sectors
alongside the sector-neutral framework.
Key questions being asked by the TPT are if respondents agree with
the proposed definition of a transition plan, who the key users are of
such plans are and what the key use cases are for them.
It is also asking for views on how the taskforce should select which
sectors to develop tailored transition plan templates for, and what
financial sub-sectors and real economy sectors should the TPT prioritise
following that logic.