BlackRock started using its weight to draw attention to environmental and diversity issues by means of official letters to CEOs and shareholder votes together with activist investors or investor networks[89] like the Carbon Disclosure Project, which in 2017 backed a successful shareholder resolution for ExxonMobil to act on climate change.[90][91] In 2018, it asked Russell 1000 companies to improve gender diversity on their board of directors if they had less than two women on them.[92]