Sierra Club Welcomes NYC Pension Search for Asset Managers, Urges Strong Climate Accountability

Search should ensure pension mandates are awarded only to firms with credible climate-risk management and responsible stewardship

NEW YORK, NY - New York City Comptroller Mark Levine and trustees of the City's five public pension systems today announced a search for asset managers to provide passive indexing services, opening a review of major pension mandates - including those currently managed by BlackRock and State Street - in which asset managers' climate-related performance should be a central consideration.

The search comes as existing passive indexing contracts are set to expire by the end of 2026. New York City's pension systems hold more than $127 billion in public equity investments, with the majority invested in passive index products. The search includes index strategies based on climate or ESG factors, consistent with each system's investment guidelines.

Three of the city's pension systems - NYCERS, TRS, and BERS - have adopted net-zero by 2040 implementation plans and have established climate expectations for their asset managers. In their latest annual climate reports, all three systems found that most of their public-markets managers were aligned with their net-zero expectations, while BlackRock remained assessed as insufficiently aligned across all three systems.

The search follows a multi-year process in which the city pensions have set expectations for asset managers' climate plans, practices, and reporting. For pension systems with net-zero commitments, manager selection should be a key mechanism for enforcing those standards.

In response, Ben Cushing, Director of the Sierra Club's Sustainable Finance Campaign, issued the following statement:

"New York City's pension systems have set clear climate-risk standards for the asset managers entrusted with public workers' retirement savings. This search is an opportunity to put those standards into action and make clear that firms cannot keep major pension mandates without credible climate-risk management, responsible stewardship, and alignment with the pensions' long-term fiduciary obligations.

"Climate change is a systemic financial risk to the economy and the retirement security of public workers. Passive index managers still make active choices through stewardship, proxy voting, and engagement with portfolio companies. Those responsibilities should not be weakened, delayed, or treated as optional in this search. If BlackRock or any other manager wants to retain or win mandates, they should have to show that they have corrected past failures with credible, enforceable, and transparent plans - or lose business to firms that will."

BACKGROUND:

In April 2025, former Comptroller Brad Lander and the boards of NYCERS, TRS, and BERS set standards for asset managers to submit net-zero plans, and warned that managers failing to meet those standards could lose city pension business. The Sierra Club applauded that step and called on other investors to strategically leverage their relationships with asset managers to strengthen corporate engagement and proxy voting practices.

In November 2025, former Comptroller Lander recommended that three New York City pension systems re-evaluate BlackRock's mandate to manage tens of billions of dollars in public equity assets due to the firm's inadequate climate plans. The recommendation followed a review of public-markets asset managers serving the city's pension funds and identified persistent gaps in BlackRock's stewardship approach as a central concern.

In February, Sierra Club Executive Director Loren Blackford published an op-ed in Crain's New York Business urging Comptroller Levine and NYC pension trustees to continue building on the city's climate leadership by following through on key implementation priorities, including stronger asset manager accountability. The piece focused in particular on the decision facing the pension boards to follow through on the recommendation to move funds away from BlackRock over its failure to present adequate climate plans - a step that could set an important precedent for public pensions nationwide.

While many U.S. pensions have strengthened climate expectations for asset managers, few have imposed consequences on mandates of this scale. Several major UK and European pensions have already cut ties with BlackRock and other asset managers in response to climate shortcomings, underscoring the growing expectation that managers must meet clients' climate-risk standards or lose business.

New York City's pensions have been national leaders in addressing climate-related financial risk. To sustain that leadership, the Sierra Club has called on Comptroller Levine and pension trustees to continue strengthening implementation, including by ensuring that investment managers responsible for public workers' retirement savings meet the pensions' climate-risk management standards.

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 https://www.sierraclub.org.