Nicholas Funari Voltani

20260211 Chairman Letters de Larry Fink

13 min read

up:: Artigo sobre ESG // 099 MOC Anotações

Contagem de termos ‘woke’ das Chairman Letters de Larry Fink

”ESG”

2017: 1 menção

“And we are using our scale to drive better outcomes for our clients and results for our shareholders.

  • We seeded or co-invested $1.1 billion into products as we built new and innovative investment capabilities, including alternative, ESG-related, and self-indexed offerings. We launched our first-ever self-indexed, smart beta fixed income funds in 2017, which deliver a strategy to clients that wasn’t currently available in the form of an index before.”

2018: Sem menção

2019: 1 menção

“In a landscape where competition is intensifying for the best deals (and consequently, the strongest returns), we are leveraging our global footprint and scale to source the highest quality investments for clients.

And just as we expanded our ETF [exchange-traded funds] offerings to make investing accessible to more people, we’re also working on ways to deliver alternative investments in a safe and risk-managed way to more individuals.

We are also putting an increased focus on sustainability across our alternatives platform. We have already built one of the industry’s leading renewable power franchises, but we are going further.

Our alternatives specialists integrate ESG considerations across the platform in order to help our clients manage risk more effectively and achieve outperformance.

In order to maximize sustainability and to source and manage the best opportunities for our clients, we are also transforming the way that alternatives are managed. Through our acquisition of eFront and its integration into Aladdin®, we are bringing an unprecedented level of transparency and analytics to alternatives. This capability will provide visibility across asset classes, geography and macro trends, enabling BlackRock and our clients to manage risk and construct portfolios more comprehensively across public and private markets.”

É o que Telésforo:

“Em vez de agir de maneira coletiva e contestadora, os indivíduos comprometidos com uma transição ecológica justa podem se ‘engajar’ como investidores e direcionar seus recursos para um fundo ESG. Já é a financeirização não apenas da economia, do Estado e da política social, mas também do ativismo.” (Telésforo, 2025, p. 83)

É uma “financeirização do ativismo”! Muito do que aparece nessas Chairman Letters é a menção de “democratização dos investimentos”.

2020: 3 menções

No box “2020 Sustainability Actions”, se lê:

  • 100% of active and advisory strategies ESG-integrated, covering $2.9 trillion in AUM [Assets Under Management]
  • Introduced 100 new sustainable solutions in 2020 to provide investors with more choice
  • Launched Aladdin Climate, setting a new standard for assessing environmental risks across asset classes in investment portfolios
  • Added 1,200 sustainability metrics to Aladdin[®] to enable clients to understand ESG and physical climate risks
  • Intensified engagement and transparency through investment stewardship

Além disso:

“Clients increasingly want more transparency on their investments. They want to know what they’re holding, from the underlying stocks and bonds in their portfolio to the carbon emissions of that portfolio. BlackRock has invested in making carbon emissions data and ESG scores available for our iShares ETFs and mutual funds globally, and we are working to raise the bar for transparency across the industry in pursuit of helping clients and meeting their needs.”

2021: Sem menção

2021 Letter to CEOs: 4 menções (descontando 5 menções em rodapé)

Sob seção “Sustainability and Deeper Connections to Stakeholders Drives Better Returns”:

“In 2018, I wrote urging every company to articulate its purpose [sic] and how it benefits all stakeholders, including shareholders, employees, customers, and the communities in which they operate. Over the course of 2020, we have seen how purposeful companies, with better environmental, social, and governance (ESG) profiles, have outperformed their peers [!!!]. During 2020, 81% of a globally-representative selection of sustainable indexes outperformed their parent benchmarks. [Referência citada: “Blackrock. As of December 2020. […]“] This outperformance was even more pronounced during the first quarter downturn, another instance of sustainable funds’ resilience that we have seen in prior downturns. [Referência citada: “Blackrock. 94% of the sustainable indexes referenced above outperformed their parent benchmarks during COVID-19 crisis Q1 2020.“] And the broader array of sustainable investment options will continue to drive investor interest in these funds, as we have seen in 2020.

But the story goes deeper. It’s not just that broad-market ESG indexes are outperforming counterparts. It’s that within industries – from automobiles to banks to oil and gas companies – we are seeing another divergence: companies with better ESG profiles are performing better than their peers, enjoying a “sustainability premium.””

Um pouco mais abaixo:

“Questions of racial justice, economic inequality, or community engagement are often classed as an “S” issue in ESG conversations. But it is misguided to draw such stark lines between these categories. For example, climate change is already having a disproportionate impact on low-income communities around the world – is that an E or an S issue? [!!!] What matters is less the category we place these questions in, but the information we have to understand them and how they interact with each other. Improved data and disclosures will help us better understand the deep interdependence between environmental and social issues.”

Extremamente pertinente pós-Trump 2:

“While issues of race and ethnicity vary greatly across the world, we expect companies in all countries to have a talent strategy that allows them to draw on the fullest set of talent possible. As you issue sustainability reports, we ask that your disclosures on talent strategy fully reflect your long-term plans to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion, as appropriate by region. [Negrito no original!] We hold ourselves to this same standard. [!!!]”

Um bom breakdown dessa hipocrisia está relatado em: (Johnson, 2025), mencionando a página de inclusão antes e depois de, ao menos, 14/12/2024. Quão importantes foram suas “awards and recognitions” de diversidade e inclusão, se elas foram tão incerimoniosamente lançadas ao oblívio?

2022: Sem menção

2023: Sem menção

2024: Sem menção (pré-Trump II)

“Environmental”

2017: 3 menções

“Our Investment Stewardship group engages extensively with companies around the world on issues that are material to companies’ long-term financial sustainability. Over the past several years, we have written letters to company CEOs emphasizing the importance of a long-term approach. We’ve asked them to articulate their long-term growth strategies; to ensure proper governance; and to address other material social and environmental issues relevant to their business models [!] — all steps that we believe indicate the good management that drives long-term growth. The team’s 2018 priorities include: corporate strategy, governance (including Board diversity), climate risk disclosure, compensation, and human capital management policies.”

“BlackRock’s business model is not carbon intensive, but we are committed to managing our impact on the environment [grifo no original], pursuing a sustainability strategy that decouples1 our growth from environmental impact. Throughout our offices, we focus on reducing carbon emissions by decreasing energy consumption through demand reduction and infrastructure investments, and by diverting waste from landfills. We prioritize high utilization rates of our offices; we invest in LED technology and green buildings [really?]; and our consolidated data centers are among the most energy efficient, in addition to being hydro-powered. We also continue to expand our use of renewable energy. I am proud to report that by the end of 2018, in the US, we will be at 100% renewable energy and by 2020, we will achieve that globally through working with our local utilities and entering into power purchase agreements to cover the areas for which we do not have operational control.”

“We also support our employees in giving back and volunteering in their local communities [grifo no original] and globally for environmental and social efforts that move them. The focus of our philanthropic initiatives — which we align with BlackRock’s purpose as a company — is to create financial security and opportunity through better jobs and building savings for people most in need.”

2018: 5 menções

“This work [“to make a positive impact and create a better landscape for all investors”] takes many forms, including: managing a full spectrum of index, factor, active and alternative building blocks that provide investors with choice. Delivering risk management and portfolio construction technology to build risk-aware and outcome-oriented portfolios. Innovating technology and solutions to help workers better prepare for retirement. Providing sustainable investing offerings to generate positive environmental or social outcomes. Advancing financing for society’s key infrastructure needs through our real assets platform. Advocating for more clarity in markets and strong protections for investors through our Global Public Policy Group. Helping clients make sense of what’s happening in the markets through our BlackRock Investment Institute. Providing equity and debt capital to companies, enabling them to invest and grow. Engaging with companies to protect and enhance the value of investors’ money. And, ultimately, helping investors achieve their goals with less volatility, more clarity and greater certainty.

By fulfilling these responsibilities to investors and to society, we achieve our goals as a company to our shareholders. As I’ve written in my letter to CEOs, I believe that profit and purpose are inextricably linked.”

“That is what I mean when I say companies need sustainable business models. It’s not about imposing anyone’s personal environmental or social values on the companies we’re invested in on behalf of clients, nor is it BlackRock taking political positions. It’s about providing a strategic and risk management framework that supports and enhances a business’s ability to operate and deliver value to its key stakeholders over the long term.” (p. 19)

“BlackRock delivers long-term value to our shareholders by fulfilling our fiduciary duty to our clients and ensuring our purpose resonates with them.

The money that BlackRock manages is not BlackRock’s money. Our firm is built to protect and grow the value of our clients’ assets. We often get approached by special interest groups who advocate for BlackRock to vote with them on a cause. In many cases, I or other senior managers might agree with that same cause — or we might strongly disagree — but our personal views on environmental or social issues don’t matter here. Our decisions are driven solely by our fiduciary duty to our clients. [grifo no original] [!!!]

One way that BlackRock executes this duty is through our Investment Stewardship team, which advocates for sound corporate governance and business practices that we believe are consistent with sustainable long-term financial returns. Increasingly, the team engages with companies on environmental and social issues that we believe are material to that company. This team’s work over the past several years has played a role in improving the quality of engagement and dialogue between companies and investors. The team has also helped raise standards for corporate practices, indirectly benefiting investors across the equity markets.

In addition, in line with our fiduciary duty to enhance the value of our clients’ assets, we are integrating environmental, social and governance risk factors across our investment processes: from alternatives, to active equity and fixed income, to cash management. We believe business-relevant sustainability data is useful to portfolio managers and the incorporation of this data into investment processes results in better long-term returns for clients. Ensuring our clients are getting the value they expect drives results for BlackRock’s shareholders.” (Ibid.)

2019: Sem menção

2020: 1 menção (além de funcionalidade de sua plataforma Aladdin)

Só encheção de linguiça:

“As the sustainability landscape evolves, we will continue to refine and expand our disclosures to help all stakeholders assess our efforts on material environmental, social and governance matters.”

2021: Sem menção (environment é sentido cotidiano)

2022 Letter to CEOs: 1 menção (além das acima, junto com ESG)

“I believe that the pandemic has presented such an existential crisis – such a stark reminder of our fragility – that it has driven us to confront the global threat of climate change more forcefully and to consider how, like the pandemic, it will alter our lives. [grifo no original] It has reminded us how the biggest crises, whether medical or environmental, demand a global and ambitious response.”

2022: 1 menção

“At BlackRock we use data and analytics to help our clients understand how the energy transition is evolving and give them choices about how they would like to invest in emerging opportunities. Better data is essential. More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 now voluntarily report Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. I expect that number will continue to rise. But as I have said consistently over many years now, it is for governments to make policy and enact legislation, and not for companies, including asset managers, to be the environmental police. [!]“

2023: Sem menção

2024: 1 menção

“China isn’t waiting [na implementação de energia nuclear]. They’re building 100 gigawatts of nuclear, which — when completed — will mean they supply half the planet’s nuclear power. Why is China so bullish on nuclear? They see decarbonization as a way to own the future of industry.

Consider BYD. The Chinese automaker sells more electric vehicles (EVs) than any other company in the world. Next year, they plan to add full autonomous capabilities to their cars — at the same price as last year’s models.51 They already sell EVs for just $10,000 — a price no U.S. or European automaker can match. Within five years, China may have completely phased out internal combustion engines — not just for environmental reasons, but also to corner the global market on driverless, battery-powered vehicles — cars that don’t require gas and cost a third as much as their foreign competitors.” (p. 21-2)

Discussão

Há uma concentração explícita sobre a discussão de “problemas sociais e ambientais” no final dos anos 2010, em particular mediante a crise instaurada pela pandemia em 2020.

O problema do ESG não é sua motivação de tornar o mundo mais sustentável, e sim seu instinto de associar o que “deve ser feito” com o que “traz bons retornos financeiros”. Não é o redirecionamento de recursos financeiros e de capital para atividades mais sustentáveis o que é criticado por uma visão anticapitalista, e sim que estas atividades tenham de fazer sua própria existência caber adequadamente em portfólios de lá e de acolá, que o fardo mais leve da sobrevivência daqueles que delas dependem sejam, antes de tudo, um galardão que mais pese nos bolsos de seus honoráveis patronos.

Referências

JOHNSON, Lamar. BlackRock ends diversity goals, merges DEI team into ‘Talent and Culture’. ESG Dive, 3 mar. 2025.

TELÉSFORO, João. Confissões do capitalismo “verde”: lucrando com a tragédia climática e com placebos ESG. In: LUEDY, Laura (Org.). Tempo fechado: colapso ecológico e capitalismo. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2025.

Footnotes

  1. Decoupling. ↩

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