Civitology vs. Wall Street: An open letter to the chairs and hidden faces of BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity

BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity Investments are the four largest asset managers in the world. Together, they oversee well over $37 trillion in assets (AUM or discretionary assets) and influence thousands of companies across every major sector of the global economy. BlackRock alone manages about $13.5 trillion as of Q3 2025; Vanguard roughly $11 trillion; State Street Investment Management about $4.7 trillion; and Fidelity about $6.8 trillion in discretionary assets with $17.5 trillion under administration. (Wikipedia)

This concentration of financial power is unprecedented. These firms do not just “own the market”; they shape it. Through capital allocation and proxy voting, they help decide whether the world doubles down on fossil fuels and weapons, or transitions toward a safer, livable future.

Yet recent research shows:

The world’s top institutional investors still hold trillions of dollars in coal, oil, and gas companies, with Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, and Capital Group identified as the largest fossil fuel investors; Fidelity is among the biggest shareholders of ExxonMobil. (Urgewald)
In 2024, institutional investors collectively held $4.3 trillion in fossil fuel companies, with $4 trillion of that backing companies actively expanding fossil fuel infrastructure. (Urgewald)
The top four asset managers – BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity – supported only 7% of environmental and social shareholder resolutions in 2024, helping block most attempts by other investors to demand climate and human-rights safeguards. (ICAEW)

These decisions are not abstract. They influence whether global warming stays near 1.5–2°C or accelerates toward catastrophic levels; whether industries tied to deforestation, mass extinction and militarization expand or contract.

II. How the Big Four Push Humanity Toward a Dystopian Trajectory

1. Fossil Fuel Expansion

The Investing in Climate Chaos 2024 dataset shows that institutional investors still hold trillions in coal, oil, and gas — with a majority of that money in companies expanding fossil fuel production, new oil and gas reserves, pipelines, LNG terminals, and coal plants. (Investing in Climate Chaos)

Vanguard is identified as the world’s largest fossil fuel investor, with about $413–444 billion in coal, oil, and gas holdings. (Urgewald)
BlackRock is second, with about $400+ billion in fossil fuel assets. (Urgewald)
State Street and Fidelity together hold tens of billions more; all four are among ExxonMobil’s top shareholders (Vanguard, BlackRock, State Street, Fidelity together holding tens of billions in ExxonMobil alone). (Urgewald)

Meanwhile, the IEA has warned that no new oil, gas or coal fields are compatible with the Paris 1.5°C goal, and Reclaim Finance calls the rapid build-out of LNG a potential “climate disaster” that could emit over 10 billion tons of greenhouse gases by 2030. (Le Monde.fr)

These four firms are not passive spectators; they are among the principal financial enablers of this build-out.

2. Military-Industrial Complex

The “Big Three” – BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street – are consistently among the top shareholders of major weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, RTX (Raytheon), Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and General Dynamics. (AMUST)

BlackRock even markets dedicated aerospace and defense ETFs such as the iShares U.S. Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) and similar products in other markets specifically designed to give investors exposure to military-equipment makers. (BlackRock)

A 2023–25 mapping of shareholders in top defense firms shows Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street repeatedly appearing as top-five institutional owners, giving them enormous influence over boards whose revenues are driven by war, arms races, and geopolitical instability. (Little Sis)

3. Mass Extinction: Deforestation & Biodiversity Collapse

The Banking on Biodiversity Collapse coalition and Forests & Finance report that the big three US asset managers — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street — are major financiers of agribusiness and forest-risk commodities linked to large-scale tropical deforestation and biodiversity loss. (Forests & Finance)

Global Witness and others show that support for deforestation and biodiversity shareholder resolutions has collapsed from ~59% average backing in 2022 to just 13% in 2024, with US asset managers including BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street voting against key biodiversity resolutions far more often than their European peers. (Global Witness)

When the world most needs to safeguard forests, oceans, and ecosystems, these firms are using their voting power to weaken those protections.

4. Carceral and Repressive Systems

BlackRock and Vanguard are among the largest shareholders of US private prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group, which run detention centers and prisons deeply implicated in human-rights controversies, notably migrant detention. (KPAX News)

These firms continue to hold stakes even after repeated reports about abuses in private detention facilities, and even as those companies position themselves to profit from harsher immigration policies and expanded detention capacity. (AP News)

5. Greenwashing and Blocking Shareholder Action

Vanguard: In 2024, Vanguard Investments Australia was fined $12.9 million by the Australian Federal Court for misleading ESG claims about an “ethically conscious” bond fund that in reality held a majority of assets not screened as promised – one of the largest greenwashing penalties ever issued in Australia. (ASIC)
BlackRock: ClientEarth filed a greenwashing complaint against BlackRock in 2024 in France, arguing that the company’s climate and fossil-fuel marketing misleads clients given its large holdings in fossil fuel developers. (clientearth.org)
Voting power: ShareAction’s Voting Matters 2024 report and related analyses show that the world’s four largest asset managers – BlackRock, Fidelity, State Street, and Vanguard – supported only about 7% of 279 environmental and social resolutions in 2024, and Vanguard backed only one of them. Dozens of resolutions addressing climate, human rights, and biodiversity would have passed if just these four firms had voted in favor. (shareaction-api.files.svdcdn.com)

So while they advertise sustainability, their actual voting records overwhelmingly protect management of fossil, agribusiness, and weapons companies.

III. Case Studies by Asset Manager

A. BlackRock

BlackRock is the world’s largest asset manager with over $12–13 trillion AUM. (Wikipedia)

Case 1: $400+ Billion in Fossil Fuel Holdings

Urgewald’s Investing in Climate Chaos 2024 identifies BlackRock as the second-largest institutional investor in fossil fuels worldwide, with around $400 billion invested in coal, oil, and gas companies, many of which are actively expanding production and infrastructure. (Urgewald)

Case 2: Deep Ownership in Lockheed Martin and Weapons ETFs

BlackRock’s iShares US Aerospace & Defense ETF (ITA) and similar products are explicitly designed to provide “targeted access” to US aerospace and defense firms. (BlackRock)

SEC filings show BlackRock owning about 7.4% of Lockheed Martin (over 18 million shares as of early 2024), making it one of Lockheed’s largest shareholders. (Fintel)

Case 3: Private Prisons and Migrant Detention

BlackRock has long been one of the largest institutional owners of CoreCivic and GEO Group, the two biggest private-prison and immigration-detention companies in the US, whose business models depend on incarceration and migrant detention. (KPAX News)

Case 4: Biodiversity & Deforestation Exposure

The Banking on Biodiversity Collapse report and follow-up analysis identify BlackRock as one of the top financiers of agribusiness firms linked to deforestation and biodiversity loss. (Forests & Finance)

Despite this, Global Witness found that BlackRock voted against most biodiversity and deforestation-related shareholder resolutions in 2024. (Global Witness)

Case 5: Retreat from Climate Coalitions & Greenwashing Allegations

BlackRock scaled back its involvement in Climate Action 100+ and similar net-zero initiatives, citing fiduciary and legal concerns, weakening collective pressure on major emitters. (Financial Times)

ClientEarth’s 2024 complaint accuses BlackRock of misleading marketing around sustainable products while remaining a huge investor in fossil fuel developers. (clientearth.org)

The Sierra Club Foundation publicly divested from BlackRock in 2025, explicitly citing BlackRock’s retreat on climate stewardship. (Reuters)

B. Vanguard

Vanguard is the second-largest asset manager globally with around $11 trillion in AUM. (Wikipedia)

Case 1: World’s Largest Fossil Fuel Investor

Urgewald and multiple civil-society campaigns identify Vanguard as the largest fossil fuel investor on Earth, with around $413–444 billion in coal, oil, and gas, including about $121 billion in coal alone. (Urgewald)

Case 2: Top Investor in Major Oil Giants

Vanguard is ExxonMobil’s largest institutional investor (around $53 billion), with BlackRock, State Street, and Fidelity also among the top five holders. (Urgewald)

Case 3: Private Prisons

Alongside BlackRock, Vanguard is one of the largest shareholders in CoreCivic and GEO Group, which run private prisons and migrant detention centers widely condemned by human-rights advocates. (KPAX News)

Case 4: Greenwashing Penalty for Misleading ESG Claims

In 2024, the Australian Federal Court ordered Vanguard Investments Australia to pay $12.9 million for misleading investors about ESG exclusionary screens in its “Ethically Conscious Global Aggregate Bond Index Fund.” Many assets were in fact not screened as claimed, constituting serious greenwashing. (ASIC)

Case 5: Worst Voting Record on Climate and ESG Resolutions

ShareAction’s Voting Matters 2024 shows Vanguard had the worst record of any major asset manager, supporting just 1 out of 279 environmental and social resolutions, while the top four asset managers together supported only 7%. (shareaction-api.files.svdcdn.com)

Activist campaigns like Vanguard S.O.S. explicitly target Vanguard for this combination of vast fossil holdings and near-zero support for climate resolutions. (EQAT — Earth Quaker Action Team)

C. State Street (State Street Investment Management / SSGA)

State Street manages around $4.7–5.4 trillion in assets and is the third-largest ETF provider globally. (State Street)

Case 1: Among the Top Five Fossil Fuel Investors

Urgewald lists State Street as one of the top five institutional investors in fossil fuels, with approximately $184 billion in coal, oil, and gas holdings. (Urgewald)

Case 2: Core Owner of Defense Contractors

State Street is repeatedly listed among the top five shareholders of major defense contractors (Boeing, RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics), helping sustain and legitimize the global arms build-out. (Little Sis)

Case 3: Support for Fossil Fuel Expansion

Reclaim Finance’s assessment finds that State Street’s activities “still overwhelmingly support fossil fuel expansion,” with no commitment to stop financing fossil fuel developers, including through new bond purchases. (reclaimfinance.org)

Case 4: Biodiversity and Deforestation Votes

Global Witness reports that US asset managers including State Street voted against key biodiversity and deforestation resolutions at much higher rates than European peers in 2024, contributing to zero biodiversity resolutions passing. (Global Witness)

Case 5: Retreat from Climate Coalitions

State Street Global Advisors withdrew from Climate Action 100+ in early 2024, weakening investor pressure on heavy emitters just when stronger action was needed. (Financial Times)

D. Fidelity Investments

Fidelity is a privately held asset manager with about $6.8 trillion in discretionary assets under management and $17.5 trillion in assets under administration. (Fidelity)

Case 1: Fossil Fuel Expansion via Bond Financing

Reclaim Finance’s 2024 assessment finds that Fidelity Investments’ activities “overwhelmingly support fossil fuel expansion.” Fidelity has not committed to stop financing fossil fuel developers and has bought at least 35 new bonds from such companies between January 2023 and June 2024, providing roughly $227 million in capital to expanding fossil fuel developers. (reclaimfinance.org)

Case 2: Leadership Ties to Oil & Gas

Investigations by ACRE Institute and media such as EcoWatch and Grist report that members of the Johnson family, which owns Fidelity, also own Discovery Natural Resources, an oil and gas company operating in the Permian Basin, and that key Fidelity figures have overlapping roles or interests in fossil fuel businesses. (EcoWatch)

Case 3: Extremely Low Support for Climate & Social Resolutions

Like the other three giants, Fidelity supported only a small fraction of environmental and social shareholder resolutions in 2024, helping block dozens that might have required fossil fuel and other companies to adopt stronger climate and human-rights policies. (shareaction-api.files.svdcdn.com)

Case 4: Massive Portfolio Emissions

Fidelity International’s own climate report notes that the investments it manages generate around 190 million tons of CO₂e, compared to about 9,244 tons from its own operations – roughly 20,000 times more emissions from its portfolio than from its offices. (Amazon Web Services, Inc.)

Despite net-zero rhetoric, Fidelity continues to hold and finance fossil fuel expansion, arguing for “transition” of assets rather than rapid phase-out, even though climate science is clear that ongoing expansion is incompatible with 1.5°C. (//www.investmentweek.co.uk/)

Case 5: Voting with Fossil Boards

Reclaim Finance reports that 88% of Fidelity’s votes in 2024 backed the boards of fossil fuel developers and 84% backed executive pay, effectively endorsing management strategies that continue expansion of oil and gas production. (reclaimfinance.org)

IV. Synthesis: Structural Cowardice and Civilizational Risk

Across these case studies, a pattern emerges:

Huge fossil and weapons exposure – hundreds of billions into companies driving climate breakdown and militarization.
Green branding and ESG marketing – stewardship reports, net-zero pledges, “ethical” funds.
Voting against meaningful action – blocking shareholder resolutions on climate, human rights, and biodiversity.
Profit from suffering – stakes in private prisons, deforestation-linked agribusiness, and arms manufacturers whose revenues rise with conflict.

This is not a neutral portfolio. It is a structural choice to cling to short-term returns from activities that knowingly destabilize the climate, magnify war risks, deepen inequality, and push ecosystems toward mass extinction.

V. Open Letter to the Boards of BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity

1. Who This Letter Is Addressed To

BlackRock, Inc. – Board of Directors
Larry Fink (Chair & CEO)
Robert S. Kapito
Greg Fleming
William E. Ford
Fabrizio Freda
Margaret “Peggy” L. Johnson
Cheryl D. Mills
Kathleen Murphy
Amin H. Nasser
Gordon M. Nixon
Adebayo “Bayo” Ogunlesi
Charles H. Robbins
Hans V. Vestberg
Susan Wagner
Mark Wilson
(and any other current directors of BlackRock Inc.)

The Vanguard Group / Vanguard U.S.-domiciled Funds – Board of Directors / Trustees
Mark Loughridge (Independent Chair)
Tara Bunch
Scott C. Malpass
John Murphy
Lubos Pastor
Rebecca Patterson
André F. Perold
Salim Ramji (CEO)
Sarah Bloom Raskin
Grant Reid
David Thomas
Barbara Venneman
Peter F. Volanakis

State Street Corporation / State Street Investment Management – Board of Directors
Ronald P. O’Hanley (Chair & CEO)
Amelia C. Fawcett
Marie A. Chandoha
DonnaLee DeMaio
William L. Meaney
Patrick T. O’Brien
Joseph L. Hooley
Sara Mathew
(plus any additional currently-serving directors listed by State Street)

Fidelity Investments (FMR LLC)
Abigail P. Johnson (Chair & CEO)
and the undisclosed board of FMR LLC / Fidelity Investments.

These are chairs, I am also writing a letter to all those whose names are not in this list but hold the real cards of these asset managers:

Open Letter To the Boards of BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and Fidelity: You Are Funding a Future Your Own Children Will Curse:

I am writing this not as an “ESG stakeholder,” not as a polite NGO, but as someone who thinks in civilizational time.

You are not background noise in this story. You are central characters.

Between you, you control and influence tens of trillions of dollars. You are the largest or among the largest shareholders in the companies that are:

expanding fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure,
building and selling the weapons that feed wars,
tearing down the last great forests,
driving species toward extinction, and
turning human beings into revenue lines inside private prisons and migrant detention centres.

You know this. You have the data. You employ the analysts. You read the reports.

And yet you still act as if you are helpless passengers on a runaway train you yourselves are driving.

You hide behind three phrases: “fiduciary duty,” “index investing,” and “engagement.”
You wield them like shields to avoid looking directly at what you are actually doing.

Let’s be brutally honest.

You are pouring hundreds of billions of dollars into coal, oil, and gas, including companies aggressively expanding production and building new fossil infrastructure in the 2020s – precisely when science says expansion must stop.
You are among the top shareholders in the weapons manufacturers whose profits spike every time a war flares up or an arms race accelerates.
You are major owners of agribusiness and forest-risk commodity giants whose operations destroy rainforests, poison ecosystems, and wipe out species.
You have been key shareholders in CoreCivic and GEO Group, whose business model is cages: private prisons and migrant detention centres where human suffering is monetised.
You flood the world with “sustainable” and “ethical” products while your own voting records show you rejecting the overwhelming majority of serious climate, biodiversity, and human-rights resolutions.

This is not unfortunate collateral damage. This is a deliberate pattern.

You talk about “managing risk.” But the risk you are managing is the risk to your fee income, your market share, and your comfort – not the risk to the planetary systems that keep your own descendants alive.

You talk about “the long term.” Yet everything you are funding is compressing the future into a narrower, hotter, more violent corridor.

If you keep going as you are, here is what your grandchildren inherit from your courage-free stewardship:

Cities where summer heatwaves are literally unsurvivable without air-conditioning, and where the poor die quietly while your portfolio companies report “strong energy sector performance.”
Coastal regions ravaged by rising seas and storms, where families lose homes again and again while fossil companies you financed continue to expand extraction.
Regions where harvests fail, water disappears, and millions are forced to move, fueling political extremism and conflict – a gift to the weapons firms you own.
Forests gone. Species gone. Coral reefs gone. Whole ecosystems your grandchildren will only know from photos and stories, because you were too timid to vote against deforestation and expansion.
A harsher, more authoritarian world where fear and scarcity are met with more prisons, more border camps, more surveillance – the very infrastructure you helped build.

You are constructing that future in real time and calling it “fiduciary duty.”

No, this is not duty. This is short-sighted cowardice hiding in legal language.

You know that fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with a stable climate.
You know that deforestation accelerates climate chaos and mass extinction.
You know that war and militarization are not “neutral sectors” but engines of human misery.
You know that prisons-for-profit create incentives to criminalise and detain the most vulnerable.

Yet when the moment comes to act – when a shareholder resolution asks for a serious transition plan, deforestation safeguards, human-rights due diligence, or an end to fossil expansion – you almost always fold:

You abstain.
You vote with management.
You say it’s “not the right mechanism.”
You hide in procedural language while the window for real change slams shut.

You are not neutral. You are not “just following the index.” You design the index products, you decide what the default options are for millions of ordinary people, and you choose how to vote the shares you hold in their name.

Every time you choose comfort over courage, you are making a clear statement to the future:

“We saw the disaster coming. We understood our role. We decided our careers, our quarterly flows, and our low-friction politics were more important than preventing hell for our own descendants.”

You cannot spin that away.

Your children and grandchildren will grow up in the world you are financing right now. They will live with the chaos, the scarcity, the instability, and the loss. They will look back at your board minutes, your stewardship reports, your voting records, and they will see a pattern of people who possessed enormous power and chose, again and again, to protect their own convenience instead of the conditions for life.

That is the hellfire you are creating. Not metaphorical. Physical. Atmospheric. Ecological. Social.

You still have a choice – but it is closing fast.

Real courage from you would look like this:

No more capital for fossil fuel expansion. Stop financing and holding new bonds and shares in companies that are expanding coal, oil, or gas production or building new fossil infrastructure.
A time-bound exit from fossil companies without credible 1.5°C-aligned plans – not PR slogans, but independently verified, absolute-emissions-reduction pathways.
Strict deforestation-free and nature-positive criteria across mainstream funds, not just niche ESG products. Exit companies that cannot or will not meet them.
A complete withdrawal from private prisons and migrant detention profiteers. No more cages in your portfolios.
A default “YES” stance on robust climate, biodiversity, and human-rights resolutions, with clear, public explanations for any exceptions. Not the current pattern of “NO unless there is zero cost to us.”
An end to greenwashing. Align fund names, marketing, and holdings. If you say “sustainable” or “ethical,” then act like it.

If you think this is “too radical,” then you have not understood how radical the physics of climate change and ecosystem collapse actually are.

The world does not need more statements from you. It needs you to stop treating civilizational survival as a PR theme and start treating it as the baseline condition for any meaningful concept of fiduciary duty.

You have the power to change trajectory. You always had it. The only question left is whether you will use it – or whether you will go down in history as the boards that saw the fire, owned the fuel, and chose to keep getting paid while the house burned.

Your descendants will live in that house. Remember that the next time you vote.

Signed,
Bharat Bhushan (Bharat Luthra)
Father of Civitology

Saturday, November 29, 2025