Vanguard is the world's second-largest fund firm and asset manager with about $7.2tr (£5.8tr) of assets on its books. It owns the largest stake in Northern Suffolk, the train company being sued by the State of Ohio after one of its trains derailed in the town of East Palestine in February. The accident led to the open-air burning of around 100,000 gallons of toxic vinyl chloride.
Vanguard is also the third largest shareholder of Occidental Petroleum, the parent company of Oxy Vinyls, the firm which owned three of the five train cars that contained the hazardous chemical.
This arrangement has led to anger from campaigners, who say individual investors should “know the negative impacts of their investments.”
The chemicals were traveling from Oxy Vinyls’ plant in Deer Park, Texas to its facility in Niagara Falls, Ontario on 3 February when the two-mile long 32N train derailed.
Oxy Vinyls is one of the biggest producers of PVC in the world and has “a...