.png?width=200&height=78&name=CH%20Diligence%20(thicker%20line-white).png "CH Diligence (thicker line-white)")
MSN/Reuters: A lawyer for BlackRock said that Republican states' claim that asset managers violated antitrust law through industry climate groups was not "plausible," as the firms pressed to have the case dismissed.
ESG Today: Canada’s Competition Bureau announced the release of its final guidelines on environmental claims, aimed at helping companies to comply with new anti-greenwashing laws when making claims about the environmental benefits or attributes of products or businesses.
Benefits Canada: Institutional investors are moving away from standard environmental, social and governance factors, according to a new report by Morningstar Inc.
Green Central Banking: The administration of US president Donald Trump has announced that it plans to overturn a rule that allows pension funds to consider ESG factors when making investment decisions and exercising shareholder voting rights.
MSN/Reuters: Texas removed BlackRock from a list of companies seen as boycotting the energy industry, a step the New York asset manager won only with steep cuts to its climate ambitions.
MSN/Reuters: Citigroup said it was rolling back a 2018 policy that placed restrictions on providing banking services to retail clients selling firearms, citing recent regulatory developments.
Yahoo Finance: The venture capital model honed and perfected in Silicon Valley is proving a bad fit for the clean tech industry, and investors should instead accept that they’ll need to commit much bigger sums of money for longer periods of time.
ESG Dive: The Biden administration’s Labor Department finalized the rule, “Prudence and Loyalty in Selecting Plan Investments and Exercising Shareholder Rights,” in 2022, and it has been in effect since January 2023. At the time, the agency said the rule overturned guidance from the first Trump administration which had a “chilling effect” on fiduciaries.
PR Newswire: Significant policy changes are reshaping how many companies approach sustainability, according to a new survey by The Conference Board. 80% of surveyed sustainability executives say their companies are adjusting their ESG strategies in response to the new administration.
ESG Dive: Texas Attorney General Paxton initially filed the lawsuit against the nation’s three largest asset managers in November, supported by 10 other Republican-led states. The lawsuit alleges BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street acquired “substantial” holdings in public coal companies and then pushed those companies to reduce their output.
