Building a global investment platform with clients at the center

Delivering value for all stakeholders is critical to BlackRock’s long-term success, but our clients - who entrust us to manage assets on their behalf - are the reason BlackRock exists. We have a responsibility to put their best interest at the center of every decision we make.

Our clients include people of all backgrounds saving for their futures. They are pensions, who manage the retirement savings of teachers, nurses, factory workers and small business owners. They are educational and nonprofit organizations, who work to educate students in pursuit of solving social challenges. And they are insurance companies and governments, who support people during life’s most difficult moments and build hospitals, schools and roads to improve their communities. By investing on our clients’ behalf, we help more and more people experience financial well-being throughout their lives.

BlackRock has spent the last 33 years helping to provide better financial futures for our clients. We offer an extensive set of investment strategies, across active and index, asset classes, geographies and exposures, so that we can develop solutions that meet clients’ specific needs. It is why we built our Aladdin technology and risk management system: to help clients understand and manage risk, operate more efficiently and make more informed investment decisions. It is why we pioneered the target-date fund, an all-in-one portfolio that automatically adjusts for different stages of an investor’s life. And it is why we use our voice as shareholders to urge companies to focus on important issues - like climate change, the fair treatment of workers and equality - to better protect the long-term value of our clients’ investments.

We continue to innovate ahead of clients’ evolving needs. For example, in 2020 we introduced Aladdin Climate to better assess climate risks in investment portfolios and launched LifePath Paycheck to provide millions of American workers with simplified access to lifetime income throughout their retirement. We innovate every day because challenging the status quo and finding new solutions enhances returns, convenience, value and transparency for our clients and helps them achieve their long-term goals.

Helping clients achieve their long-term goals

Spotlight: Building resilience with renewable power

BlackRock is unwavering in our commitment to working with clients to help them reach their goals over the long term. One example of this commitment in action is our renewable power platform. BlackRock’s Real Assets team manages one of the largest renewable power platforms in the world, and across our strategies, we have over $11 billion of invested and committed capital. Renewables have continued to grow as more of our clients look to alternative sources of return and sustainable investments to add resilience to their portfolios. At the same time, renewables are playing a key role in helping to solve the global climate crisis and the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources - both of which are necessary for long-term financial well-being.

Our robust portfolio of renewable energy projects gives clients access to the opportunity presented by the global transition to a net-zero economy. BlackRock has invested on their behalf in over 270 wind and solar infrastructure projects around the world.⁴ Collectively these investments produce enough clean energy to power over 30 million homes for one year, leading to carbon emissions reductions equivalent to removing 36 million cars from the road and providing approximately 20,000 jobs.⁴

These big numbers have meaningful on-the-ground impacts. For example, BlackRock invested in the construction of two solar power projects in Queensland, Australia, in an area long known for coal mining, but which had recently begun to transition to renewable energy. The 240-megawatt portfolio was slated to generate enough clean energy to power around 85,000 homes in the region annually.

The project was based in a small rural town of about 1,200 people. Over the nearly two-year construction period, BlackRock’s investment led to the creation of 550 building jobs, in addition to boosting local service-related employment. Today, the town continues to benefit from the management of these green projects - from ongoing sponsorship of community events to supplying a printing facility for an internet access center.

Capturing the growth opportunity in renewable projects such as these helps our clients build portfolios for the future - not only for the next five years but for the next century. They also serve a large universe of stakeholders by adding resilience to local economies and the environment.

¹ Source: BlackRock
² As of November 1, 2020.
³ BlackRock Investment Stewardship data reflects the period from January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020.
⁴ Source: BlackRock. Metrics estimated over the lifetime of BlackRock’s renewable power assets and funds. Employment figures are estimated using Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Green Growth, “A U.S. Program for Controlling Climate Change and Expanding Job Opportunities.”