If anyone knows about the great cosmos of finance, it is probably him: “I don't think we're going to save the world.

That's not our job either," said the head of Blackrock, the world's largest asset manager, Larry Fink, in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung a few months ago.

Fink co-founded Blackrock and became a billionaire on Wall Street;

he has established his firm as an influential corporation, invested in thousands of companies around the world.

The total investment is over 9 trillion dollars.

This man's word carries weight.

As head of Blackrock, Fink has been using this for several years to give the CEOs of the companies in which Blackrock invests a kind of guideline for their actions.

Werner Mussler

Business correspondent in Brussels.

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Inken Schoenauer

Editor in business, responsible for the financial market.

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The question of how this fits in with the flawless capitalist Fink and whether the financial industry of all things really wants to save the world lately is quite appropriate.

Fink wants all of this to be understood correctly: “I am committed to the environment.

However, as an investor, it is my responsibility to maximize my clients' returns.

But that only works if companies position themselves in such a way that they are prepared for the future.

If you don't face the problem of climate change today, you have no future.

The companies understand that, but above all the investors have understood that.” This statement sets the tone and, above all, increases the pressure.

Without a corresponding change in the companies, it will be difficult to find investors in the future.

Again and again it is said that the current transformation of the economy towards more climate friendliness is the greatest challenge since industrialization.

We are actually talking about an epoch that was over a hundred years ago.

Anyone who looks at the change in companies today can certainly understand the sentence.

Even before Corona began, companies were in the midst of major change processes.

Digitization alone has created completely new challenges.

In many cases, even this topic has not yet been fully dealt with.

Previously analog processes are often only translated digitally.

That's not enough to be able to deny the future.

In fact, completely new and sometimes different business models than those we are familiar with are emerging from digitization.

The same is true of sustainability.

Everyone is talking about it, but in many cases it is not at all clear how this simple term is to be filled with life and, above all, implemented.

The Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection writes on its website: “The promotion of sustainable development is the guiding principle of the Federal Government’s policy.

Economic performance, the protection of the natural basis of life and social responsibility must go hand in hand so that developments are sustainable in the long term.

The economy is an important player and multiplier for more sustainability.”

But what does that mean specifically?