Over the past couple of years, half of UK universities have committed to ending their financial investments in fossil fuels, thanks to pressure from student and activist groups. Only one Russell Group University has rejected any move to divest from this polluting, world-threatening industry – the University of Birmingham. Make no mistake, our university is standing on the wrong side of history. The newly appointed Vice-chancellor, Professor Adam Tickell, has a responsibility to make this right. 

Greece, Canada, and Siberia are burning. In Europe, flooding is killing hundreds. We stand at the precipice of a climate disaster. Most recently, scientists found that the gulf stream is at risk of collapse, which would severely disrupt the rains that billions depend upon for food in the global south. Desertification, deforestation, failing crops and melting ice – the relentless destruction of nature is placing human society under urgent threat. ‘We are eroding the very foundations of economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide’ says Robert Watson, chair of the IBPES, ‘we must act now’. A failure to divest from fossil fuels denies this reality and worsens the coming crisis. 

Our university is failing to protect its students; by funding the likes of Shell and BP it is complicit in the disasters to come. These are the companies that have known about climate change for decades and lied to the public about the danger. They’ve spent millions maintaining their grip on power in order to continue polluting our atmosphere and seas for profit. Now that the public is turning on them, these companies are making a big fuss about how “sustainable” they actually are. These are lies, nothing more – the renewable energy they like to show off still makes up only tiny portions of their portfolios. They continue to expand oil drilling and push back against the urgent action we need. 

In response to a news story in Redbrick last year, a UoB spokesperson said, ‘the University has agreed to proactively pursue ethical fund options, where suitable investments were available, and where investment returns would be consistent with the University’s charitable objectives.’ There’s a clear problem here: there is no way, given the damage they are doing to our planet, that investments in fossil fuels can be construed to be ‘ethical’. If these investments are not of the ethical kind but rather of the sort that the university must make to meet its ‘charitable objectives’, then whoever manages these investments fails to see the lunacy of funding charity with an industry that threatens the whole world. Every barrel of oil we burn brings us closer to setting off irreversible chain reactions that could lead to a ‘Hothouse Earth’, with large parts of the globe becoming uninhabitable. 

Fossil fuels are not even good investments. If you choose to overlook the blatant moral factor, climate action from governments and increasingly poor public opinion still makes fossil fuel companies worse investments year on year. The World Bank and the Bank of England have both warned that trillions of dollars of investments in the sector are at risk, and as renewable energy becomes increasingly efficient more and more investors are moving their money towards these areas, and away from fossil fuels. 

By funding the extraction and burning of fossil fuels our university is engaged in an immoral exercise which threatens the livelihoods of its students, and of billions of people around the globe. The climate crisis is already here, and the deaths are already beginning, but there might still be time to avoid the worst of it. We cannot afford to pollute any longer; the companies responsible must be abandoned if they refuse to change. Our new vice-chancellor has a responsibility to do the right thing, to make the university the ethical and honourable institution that it hopes to be by completely phasing out its fossil fuel investments as quickly as possible. Anything less is a failure to live up to those ideals.

After contacting the University to make a comment on the situation, I received the following statement:

‘The University is committed to sustainability in its widest context and as part of this seeks to balance all of its operations and the impact it has on the environment with the requirement to be financially sustainable. In line with our investment principles, we have transitioned to ethical investment funds where available; this has included removing investments from fund managers who do not meet those principles. Over the past two years we have reallocated a significant proportion (c£6m) of our assets out of fossil fuel companies and into ethical and sustainable investment funds. These funds exclude – or heavily restrict – investments in companies deriving revenue from the following areas: carbon and fossil fuels, defence and weapons, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, adult entertainment and high-interest lending.

We have investment exclusions within the University’s Responsible Investment Policy and these exclusions include oil and mining companies where revenues exceed 5% of global revenues from thermal coal, oil shale and tar sands production (considered the most polluting).We continue to invest in oil and mining companies (0.56% of total portfolios in July 2021), through our external investment managers, where the investment managers are convinced that these companies are committed to the transition to a sustainable future and associated lower carbon world in line with the Paris Agreement.

The University is committed to maintaining high environmental, social and governance standards across its investment portfolios, aligned to its commitment to achieve net carbon zero. We are signatories to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment, which defines responsible investment as a strategy and practice to incorporate environmental, social and governance factors in investment decisions and active ownership.  A full list of the UN Principles is included in the University’s Responsible Investment Policy: UoB Responsible Investment Policy.

Our primary focus when making investments is ensuring that we can continue to invest in high quality teaching, world leading research and the very best facilities for staff and students now and in the future. In making investment decisions, the University believes that regard must be made to a range of environmental, social and governance issues and expects that any investment managers working on its behalf consider the following:

   promotion of human rights, including but not limited to the equality of gender, race and sexuality;  promotion of good business ethics and good employment practices;  protection of the global environment, its climate and its biodiversity;  promotion of community investment and; promotion of international co-operation and an end to international conflict including a prohibition of companies which produce armaments.’

Further information about the University’s ethical investments is available on the University’s website.

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