Earth Quaker Action Team protests outside Vanguard headquarters on Wednesday

The Earth Quaker Action Team will hold a rally, march and prayer outside Vanguard’s Malvern headquarters on Wednesday to protest the company’s continued investments in fossil fuel projects that are destroying the environment and exacerbating climate change.

Protect Our Water, Our Heritage, Our Rights, Chester residents concerned about their quality of life and Stop the Money Pipeline will join EQAT members to protest current Vanguard-backed projects such as the Mountain Valley Pipeline from West Virginia to North Carolina and the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania.

“We are excited about Voices of Vanguard’s impact and vision for a livable future,” said Eve Gutman, Media and Research Coordinator at EQAT. “Hundreds of people will come together to take powerful, nonviolent action at Vanguard because more and more people across the country – and around the world – recognize Vanguard’s role in getting the ship back on course and steering us toward a livable future for all.”

During the protest, many people living next to the aforementioned pipelines will speak out about the great damage the projects have caused to their communities. The protest coincides with the replacement of CEO Tim Buckley with Salim Ramji, who is set to take up his new position on July 8.

“As Salim Ramji takes office as Vanguard’s next CEO, we call on him to be a true leader and bring the urgency it deserves to Vanguard’s role as the world’s largest fossil fuel investor in driving climate change,” Gutman said. “Vanguard should use its influence as a powerful shareholder to pressure the companies it invests in to do better on climate change and to end its investments in fossil fuel companies that refuse to transform their businesses to pursue a livable future.”

In recent years, Vanguard has come under fire from many environmental groups for investing more money in fossil fuel companies than any other investment firm. Urgewald, a Germany-based environmental research group, found that Vanguard invested $262 billion in the fossil fuel industry, six million more than BlackRock, and also withdrew from the Net Zero Asset Managers Initiative in December 2022. Between January 2022 and May 2023, Vanguard issued nearly $60 million worth of bonds to EQT Corporation, which was a major customer of the Mountain Valley pipeline. That was nearly $15 million more than the next highest company during the same period, which was also BlackRock.

“The company’s previous leadership has refused to take meaningful climate action. It has lagged the asset management industry by failing to engage seriously with portfolio companies on climate issues and by failing to publish plans to decarbonize Vanguard’s investment portfolio in line with a 1.5 degree cap on global temperature rise,” EQAT noted in a press release. “On July 3, concerned and affected people of many generations from near and far will gather at Vanguard headquarters in the largest Vanguard protest to date to make one thing clear to Vanguard’s new CEO: Vanguard is heading for climate catastrophe.”

The protest will take place at 2 p.m. at 785 Cedar Road, followed by a march and prayer in front of Vanguard headquarters.

Read more about our coverage of EQAT/Vanguard:

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