Get Woke, Go Broke: CEO's ESG Activism Costing BlackRock Dearly

As asset management firm Blackrock is learning, it turns out that embracing leftist Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) policies is bad for business. Who knew?

After significant efforts to embrace and enforce woke ESG — environmental, social and governance — policies on American companies, behemoth asset manager BlackRock has finally admitted what conservatives have warned: adopting and prioritizing the radical aims of ESG poses a significant risk of adverse effects to its bottom line and legal footing.
The revelation from BlackRock comes courtesy of a filing the company made with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Lamenting that — as a direct result of scrutiny and warnings from conservatives — "BlackRock faces increasing focus from regulators, officials, clients and other stakeholders regarding ESG matters," the company said in the filing that it is "subject to competing demands from different stakeholder groups with divergent views on ESG-related matters, including in countries in which BlackRock operates and invests, as well as in states and localities where BlackRock serves public sector clients."

The filing in question may be viewed in its entirety here.

Amazingly, prioritizing things like ESG instead of, you know, a company's core mission can lead to problems.

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But as for Blackrock, they seem shocked — shocked — to see how their CEO's embracing of ESG is costing them.

Here's the onion:

...the company said in the filing that it is "subject to competing demands from different stakeholder groups with divergent views on ESG-related matters, including in countries in which BlackRock operates and invests, as well as in states and localities where BlackRock serves public sector clients."

Let me translate that from bureaucratese to English: "...competing demands from different stakeholder groups" means "...competing demands from people who insist on an asset management company actually focusing on asset management." "...divergent views on ESG-related matters" means "some of our stakeholders who would rather not worry about 'woke' horse squeeze."

And, yes, this ESG folderol can be laid at the feet of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink (a more appropriately named CEO does not exist.)

BREAKING: @BlackRock has admitted that their core business could be "materially adversely affected" by CEO Larry Fink's continued ESG activism, citing it as a key risk factor in their annual filing with the SEC. pic.twitter.com/44VzyBU02W
— Will Hild (@WillHild) March 1, 2024

One more translation: "Materially adversely affected" means "they sold out to the radical leftist ESG garbage, and now they are getting their shorts handed to them."

Look, the purpose of an asset management firm is to manage assets. That seems like belaboring the obvious, but it's obviously news to Larry Fink. The purpose of any corporate organization is to return a profit to its shareholders by engaging in its core business of providing goods or services. That's it. That's their purpose. Not ESG, not social engineering, not outreach to employing "disadvantaged groups." BlackRock seems to be absorbing that lesson right now.

As for Larry Fink, in a sane and just world, he would be standing in an unemployment line right now.

In the filing, BlackRock admits:

If BlackRock is not able to successfully manage ESG-related expectations across varied stakeholder interests, it may adversely affect BlackRock’s reputation, ability to attract and retain clients, employees, shareholders and business partners or result in litigation, legal or governmental action, which may cause its AUM, revenue and earnings to decline.

My prediction: They won't be able to successfully manage these ESG-related expectations along with the primary stakeholder interest of returning a profit. That will hurt their investors and, ultimately, the company. The proper action would be to dump their "ESG-related expectations" and to do so forthwith. We'll see what they do.