BlackRock Investment Stewardship

Promoting sound corporate governance and resilient business models

Engagement is core to our stewardship efforts. Our engagement priorities reflect the themes on which we most frequently engage companies, where they are relevant, as these can be a source of material business risk or opportunity.

• Board quality and effectiveness

Our investment stewardship efforts have always started with the board and executive leadership. We believe that the performance of the board is critical to the financial success of a company and the protection of shareholders’ interests over the long-term.

Learn more about our approach

• Strategy, purpose, and financial resilience

As one of many minority shareholders, BlackRock cannot – and does not try to - direct a company’s strategy or its implementation. We engage on long-term corporate strategy, purpose and financial resilience to understand how boards and management are aligning their business decision-making with the company’s purpose and adjusting strategy and/or capital allocation plans as necessary as business dynamics change.

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• Incentives aligned with financial value creation

Appropriate and transparent compensation policies are a focus in many of BIS’ engagements with the companies in which we invest on behalf of clients. BIS looks to a company’s board of directors – typically a relevant committee – to put in place a compensation policy that incentivizes and rewards executives against appropriate and stretching goals tied to relevant strategic metrics, especially those measuring operational and financial performance.

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• Climate and natural capital

BIS engages with companies to better understand their approach to, and oversight of, climate-related risks and opportunities as well as how they manage material natural capital impacts and dependencies, in the context of their business model and sector.

Read more on climate-related risk

Read more on natural capital

Our Climate Focus Universe

Our participation in Climate Action 100+

• Company impacts on people

In our experience, companies that invest in the relationships that are critical to their ability to meet their strategic objectives are more likely to deliver durable, long-term financial performance. By contrast, poor relationships may create adverse impacts that could expose companies to legal, regulatory, operational, and reputational risks. This is particularly the case with regard to a company’s workforce, as a significant number of companies acknowledge the importance of their workers in creating long-term financial value.

See more on human capital management

Read more on human rights

Read our full engagement priorities

BIS content library

We are committed to transparency in our investment stewardship activities. It is important to us that our clients understand how the work we do on their behalf aligns with their economic interests. Below is a library of our policies, reports, thought leadership pieces, and vote bulletins.

To request an engagement please submit a request through CorpAxe

For all other inquiries please contact the team at ContactStewardship@blackrock.com