$43 Billion NYC Pension System "Reassess" Relationship With BlackRock Over ESG Backtracking $43 Billion NYC Pension System "Reassess" Relationship With BlackRock Over ESG Backtracking New York City Comptroller Brad Lander outlined in a letter to BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, one of Wall Street''s biggest advocates for ESG, that he is becoming increasingly concerned the latest investment actions of the bank do not align with its climate commitments. Lander, which oversees NYC''s pension funds (Teachers'' Retirement System, New York City Employees'' Retirement System, and the Board of Education Retirement System), managing $43 billion of their investments, penned a letter to Fink on Wednesday about the firm''s "recent efforts to tout its investments in oil and gas in response to Republicans, who have criticized the firm for its advocacy of sustainable investing," according to Bloomberg . " BlackRock has repeatedly and rightly recognized climate change as an investment risk. In your 2020 letter to CEOs, you name climate change as a "defining factor in companies'' long-term prospects," and declared your "investment conviction that sustainability- and climate-integrated portfolios can provide better risk-adjusted returns to investors." Your 2021 letter to CEOs committed to "supporting the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner "—in line with BlackRock''s pledge as a signatory to the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative (NZAMI)—and asked businesses to disclose how they are integrating their own net-zero plans into their long-term business strategies. " Unfortunately, despite these repeated proclamations , in its September 6 response to the attorneys general, BlackRock now abdicates responsibility for driving net zero alignment in its own portfolio by saying that it does not ask companies to set specific emissions targets , and that its participation in NZAMI does not mean BlackRock is setting or meeting any net zero targets .