Divest Harvard has tried (and failed) several times to compel their University to sell off its fossil fuel investments. Last week the student group was at work again, blocking the entrances to an administration office building in Harvard Yard. The purpose of this demonstration was to secure a meeting with university officials and to push …
Vermont became a battleground state for the issue of divestment after then-Governor Peter Shumlin (D) called for state pension funds to sell off fossil fuel assets in his 2016 State of the State address. Fast forward 15 months, and Vermont Watchdog is now reporting that for the second year in a row the divestment initiative …
Columbia University announced it was “divesting” from coal companies in a statement published this week by President Lee Bollinger. Some prominent activists praised the decision, but students on campus were quick to speak out against the move, saying it did not go far enough. Meanwhile, a closer look shows there’s not much substance behind …
As Divestment Facts has highlighted, Barnard’s Committee on Investments is expected to endorse a partial divestment measure to the Board of Trustees this weekend, calling on the college to sell shares in coal and oil sands as well as putting forth a “good faith effort” to divest from companies that “deny climate science.” The Trustees …
As student activists at NYU embrace new tactics in their divestment push, fellow New York City school Barnard College is preparing for a vote on a divestment measure at its March Board of Trustees meeting. Last December, the college’s Presidential Task Force to Examine Divestment recommended selling shares in coal and oil sands as well as …
For the third time in just as many years, Swarthmore College – the birthplace of the divestment movement – has has rejected this flawed, costly campaign. In the hopes of compelling the Board to take action on the issue during its upcoming February meeting, Swarthmore College’s Mountain Justice divestment group hastily organized a non-binding student …
Today, the Democratic Vermont Treasurer expressed a strong opinion against fossil fuel divestment telling a hearing, “I’m going to be blunt. We talked about divestment. It doesn’t work in this portfolio.” The comments from Beth Pearce were part of a presentation to the state’s Pension Investment Committee (VPIC) on a groundbreaking report on the costs …
Over the last few years, a majority of Boards of Trustees, Administrators, and University Presidents have come to the same conclusion about fossil fuel divestment: the cost is too high and the benefits are illusory. Now, even the students pushing for divestment are throwing down their ‘fossil free’ posters and dropping out of the failing …
Next week, Gonzaga University is slated to release a report on the fossil fuel holdings present in its endowment investments. To be clear, this report itself is not a decision on divestment, but rather a response to pressure on the university to provide more transparency on its fossil fuel holdings. Yet given increased pressure on …
Report finds divestment a “slippery slope” that “has not been shown to be in the best interests of VPIC pension beneficiaries, and conflicts with VPIC governance structure.” A new report conducted by an independent consulting firm for the state of Vermont confirms what economists, pension fund managers and academics have long said about fossil fuel …