Harvard Faculty Wants the School to Divest from Fossil Fuels

Harvard University faculty members are calling the school to divest from fossil fuels. They stridently disagree with the University's decision to hold on to their fossil fuel investments.

Shortly after Harvard announced that its new sustainable investing guidelines do not exclude investing in fossil fuels, 93 faculty members sent an open letter of protest to the president and fellows.

Harvard's New Responsible Investing Guidelines do not Include Divestment from Fossil Fuels

The exclusion of divestment from fossil fuels is an important contradictory caveat in Harvard University's newly adopted code of investment principles. Harvard's investment policies are far more than symbolic as the university oversees the world’s largest college endowment valued at $33 billion.

Shortly after hiring Jameela Pedicini as Harvard’s first vice president for sustainable investment in 2013, the university announced that it would not divest from fossil fuels despite a groundswell of protest both on and off campus.

Harvard is ignoring a trend that is sweeping across institutes of higher learning in much of the western world. A total of 500 university campuses and other institutions across America and Europe have divested from fossil fuels. While the new Harvard investment code will address a wide range of environmental and social issues, it does not oblige the school to sell off its existing fossil fuel investments.

Video - Bill McKibben and NEI President Bob Massie: "Divestment And The New Economy"

"Divestment And The New Economy" Bill McKibben and NEI President Bob Massie discuss the relationship between fossil fuel divestment, the climate crisis, and the transition to a New Economy. In recent weeks, the movement to divest college and university endowments from the fossil fuel industry has spread to over 250 schools. Just last weekend, hundreds of students converged outside of Philadelphia to strategize and grow the movement. Today, those activists are back on campus meeting with their peers and planning ways to escalate their campaigns and fight for their futures.

Students Advocating Divestment from Fossil Fuels

American higher education endowments represent $400 billion worth of investments and there is a movement afoot to divest these funds from fossil fuels. The EPA, the IPCC, and many others have stated that fossil fuels are the primary driver of climate change. However, rather than moving away from fossil fuels, the US is intensifying its exploration efforts. Right now ExxonMobil spends $100 million a day trying to find more hydrocarbons. For companies like ExxonMobile who are stalwart supporters of dirty energy, divestment is a powerful instrument to induce change.

In finance and economics, a divestment is the reduction of an asset (the opposite of an investment). Historically, a good example of ethical divestment was the withdrawal of support from companies doing business with the apartheid regime in South Africa.