Harvard faculty demands fossil fuel divestment
▻http://www.rtcc.org/2014/04/10/almost-100-harvard-staff-demand-fossil-fuel-divestment
Yesterday, Harvard announced that it would sign onto a UN code for responsible investment – a set of guidelines which prioritises environmental considerations, but does not commit Harvard to divesting its endowment from the fossil fuel industry.
93 faculty members responded today in an open letter to Harvard University President Drew Faust, accusing her of misconstruing “the purposes and effectiveness of divestment”.
Although Harvard has around 2,400 faculty members in total, those who support divestment are backed by a growing campaigning movement pushing the cause. According to Go Fossil Free, there are now ten colleges across the US which have committed to pursue fossil fuel divestment.
Contradiction
In October last year, Harvard said that it would be neither “warranted or wise” to divest its endowment – the largest university endowment in the world – from the fossil fuel industry, on the grounds that it risked politicising the fund, and depriving them of any influence for good they may have over the industry.
But this stance is “self-contradictory”, said the university’s faculty members, and failed to take into account Harvard’s long history of applying pressure through divestment in past ethical movements.
“It seems self-contradictory to argue that Harvard owns a very small percentage of shares in a group of stocks … yet can nevertheless exert greater influence on corporate behavior by retaining rather than selling that stock as protest,” they write.
“If Harvard were a major shareholder, that argument might make sense, but Harvard is not.”
Harvard currently has US$ 32.6million directly invested in the fossil fuel industry – this reflects a tiny portion of both the university’s own $33bn endowment fund, and the multi-trillion dollar fossil fuel industry.