Are You a Blackrock Investor?

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Blackrock owns about 20 to 25% of the average S&P 500 company, which may not sound enormous, but is very much almost an effective veto. The way they think about it is quite interesting because if you are a universally exposed investor like a Blackrock, then you are particularly conscious of the fact that you are universally exposed to climate change. And so I think you'd be hard pressed to argue that Blackrock isn't actually very concerned about the climate crisis and about decarbonization. It's just the way that they sort of channel that concern is not necessarily towards doing anything to mitigate the climate crisis.

Paris Marx is joined by Adrienne Buller to discuss how the tech and finance industries are selling us false solutions to the climate crisis that are designed for their own benefit.

Adrienne Buller is the Director of Research at Common Wealth and the author of The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism. Follow Adrienne on Twitter at @adribuller.

Tech Won’t Save Us offers a critical perspective on tech, its worldview, and wider society with the goal of inspiring people to demand better tech and a better world. Follow the podcast (@techwontsaveus) and host Paris Marx (@parismarx) on Twitter, and support the show on Patreon.

The podcast is produced by Eric Wickham and part of the Harbinger Media Network.

Also mentioned in this episode:

Adrienne originally wrote about the problem with the finance industry’s approach to climate change for Novara Media. She recently wrote about the failure of green capitalism for the Guardian and the power BlackRock wields for Jacobin.
Common Wealth recently produced a report on Asset Management Capitalism.
Elon Musk called ESG a scam after Tesla was booted from the S&P 500’s ESG fund.
Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen wrote The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism.

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