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.