Billy Berler, billy.berler@sierraclub.org
NEW YORK, NY – The Center for Active Stewardship (CAS) announced today the addition of the Sierra Club’s Hidden Risk scorecard to its public proxy voting Scorecards platform, which tracks how leading asset managers and their funds vote on shareholder proposals.
The two largest US asset managers, Vanguard and BlackRock, scored 0% and 1% alignment with Sierra Club recommendations, compared to several dozen institutions with 100% alignment.
Vanguard and BlackRock’s voting records reflect several years of declining engagement on climate-related proxy voting matters, walking back institutional climate commitments, and shifting increasingly to “client choice” voting options. This broader retreat from climate engagement is evident in the asset managers’ deteriorating support for climate-related resolutions, which has fallen dramatically from 2021, when both firms supported more than 40% of environmental and social proposals. Vanguard still remains the largest investor in fossil fuels, while BlackRock is the second largest. The Sierra Club Foundation moved its investments out of BlackRock in 2025 after three years of engagement on its climate risk strategy.
Proxy votes are a key opportunity for investment managers to engage with public companies and encourage long-term sustainable business strategies. Portfolio and retirement fund managers risk violating their fiduciary duties in failing to adopt strategies–including robust proxy voting–that mitigate climate change and its impacts on financial markets.
Developed by the Sierra Club and powered by CAS’s proxy voting analytics, the scorecard evaluates how leading asset managers and their funds voted on key climate and sustainability proposals in 2025, using the criteria outlined in Sierra Club's latest Hidden Risk scorecard over the past two years. By bringing its climate analysis to the CAS Scorecards platform — which includes the votes of every U.S. exchange-traded fund, mutual fund, and closed-end fund — the Sierra Club is extending its sustainable finance expertise to also analyze the funds that millions of Americans choose to invest in.
“This scorecard provides an invaluable resource for retail investors and employers selecting the best funds to steward their savings. The data shows a large set of funds have voted in alignment with Sierra Club recommendations, but most options on the market still fall short of using their power to protect savers from climate-related financial risks,“ said Allie Lindstrom, Senior Campaign Strategist with the Sierra Club’s Sustainable Finance campaign.
About the Hidden Risk in State Pensions Report
The Sierra Club’s Hidden Risk in State Pensions research series originally scrutinized the proxy votes cast by many of the largest U.S. public pension systems, analyzing the extent to which these institutions' votes address or exacerbate climate-related financial risks.
About the Center for Active Stewardship
CAS maintains the only free database that covers all proxy votes cast by U.S. ETFs, mutual funds, and closed-end funds. The Scorecards platform is part of CAS’s ongoing effort to democratize proxy voting data and empower asset owners to demand the best stewardship from their asset managers.
View the Sierra Club’s scorecard on the CAS platform at scorecards.proxydata.org.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.