Dutch construction pension fund BpfBouw has selected BlackRock as its preferred candidate to manage its €70bn pension assets under a fiduciary management mandate, despite criticism from climate campaign group Follow This.
The pension fund said BlackRock was its preferred choice following a selection process. The appointment remains subject to final contract negotiations, after which bpfBOUW has said it will provide more detail on the rationale behind its decision.
Follow This argues that selecting BlackRock sits uneasily with bpfBOUW’s climate policy, which states in its 2026 climate transition plan that “tackling climate change is a key part” of its investment policy.
“By choosing BlackRock, BpfBouw contradicts its own policy,” said Karel Kuipéri of Follow This.
“BlackRock falls well short when one factors in a fiduciary asset manager’s role in limiting climate change,” Kuipéri said. “BlackRock is on the wrong side of history when it comes to the climate crisis.”
Follow This contrasted BlackRock’s record on shareholder resolutions with that of Achmea Investment Management, which was the other asset manager competing for the mandate.
According to Follow This, Achmea IM supported more than 90% of about 57 climate-related shareholder resolutions in 2025.
By contrast, BlackRock voted in favour of two of 129 nature and climate-related shareholder resolutions in 2025, according to figures cited by Follow This. This meant it voted against around 98% of the resolutions in question.
The campaign group said the difference raised questions over how bpfBOUW’s climate objectives were reflected in its choice of fiduciary manager.
However, bpfBOUW has not yet publicly set out the detailed reasoning behind its preferred selection. Its statement said further details on the rationale would be shared after final contract negotiations with BlackRock have been completed.
Win some, lose some
BlackRock has been under scrutiny over the past two years since it withdrew from climate initiatives such as the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative in early 2025.
Dutch pension fund PFZW dramatically reduced its equity portfolio in the first half of 2025, caused by a shift from passive to active management. This resulted in a strategy change in which BlackRock, along with other asset managers, was dropped as equity manager by the Dutch pension fund for healthcare workers.
PME, the pension fund for the Dutch technology industry, decided that same year to withdraw its €5bn global ESG equity portfolio from the American asset manager.
Pensioenfonds Recreatie was the latest to ditch BlackRock for its €450m equity portfolio, replacing the firm with Cardano.
Despite these mandate losses, AP3 has stuck with BlackRock as one of its external managers, noting in its 2025 stewardship report that “ESG investments and climate issues had become increasingly politically polarised over the past year”.
This summer in the UK, the British Coal Staff Superannuation Scheme (BCSSS) appointed BlackRock as fiduciary manager for its £8bn pension scheme following a competitive selection process, replacing its longstanding bespoke in-house investment governance model.
