Coinbase introduces another controversial H.R. policy. The cryptocurrency exchange, which last year banned political discussions at work, said it would no longer negotiate over salary in hiring, and would instead offer identical pay by position and location. It said the move would eliminate pay disparities.
Exclusive: TIAA spells out its net-zero investing plan
Several of the world’s biggest asset managers have joined the movement to cut the carbon emissions of their investments to zero. Now TIAA, which oversees $1.3 trillion in assets, is unveiling its net-zero plan, DealBook is first to report.
TIAA’s $280 billion General Account will go zero-carbon by 2050, the firm is set to announce today. The account, which supports its flagship annuity offering, will do so by focusing on investments in areas like renewable energy and greener real estate, and using offsets to balance out the rest. “Climate risk is an investment risk that we must manage over time,” said Thasunda Brown Duckett, TIAA’s chief executive, describing the firm’s strategy to cut emissions as “investment selection, disposal and engagement with companies.”
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The company’s third-party investment manager, Nuveen, already abides by the U.N.’s responsible-investing principles and factors E.S.G. into investing decisions.
TIAA also said it would lay out five-year interim targets for its net-zero plan, with the first set for 2025. Other money managers embracing net-zero goals, like BlackRock and Brookfield Asset Management, have also said they will stick to such milestones — though those firms are setting 2030 as their initial target.
The plan is a bet that net-zero investing is good for the bottom line. Nick Liolis, the investment chief for the General Account, said that the move would create a “resilient portfolio” better placed to meet obligations to pension investors, “which extend into perpetuity.”
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“It’s got to be somewhere in the $80,000 to $90,000 range, if not higher.”
—Ray McGuire, the former Citigroup executive who’s running for New York mayor, when asked by The Times’s editorial board to guess the median price of a house in Brooklyn. Responses from seven other candidates ranged from $100,000 to $1.8 million, and only Andrew Yang guessed correctly: $900,000.