SU President, Maia Jarvis is lobbying the University to divest from fossil fuels and needs YOUR help.
I am lobbying the University to adopt gold-standard responsible investment policies to address the climate crisis and I need YOUR help.
Royal Holloway’s endowment/investment assets total £54.3 million with approx. 3% invested in fossil fuel companies. Last year, Coventry became the 100th UK university to divest from fossil fuels – Royal Holloway is still profiting off fossil fuel companies and is one of the final 53 UK universities to do so!
This year, I am running an ‘Invest for Change’ campaign, in partnership with SOS-UK, and am lobbying College Council (the University’s governing body) to:
- DIVEST - Divest fully from fossil fuel companies
- ENGAGE - Adopt an engagement escalation approach to the companies it remains invested in, ensuring there is a clear strategy to influence all companies in the University’s portfolio to implement robust, science-based climate action.
- IMPACT - Target a proportion of the endowment to impact investments, which specifically focus on investment in climate and social solutions.
- DISCLOSE - Implement greater transparency around University investments, with regular disclosure of holdings.
Two things you can do
Sign the statement of support. We’re especially encouraging SU student leaders to sign e.g. academic reps, student group committee members, Collective convenors, in order to emphasise how important this is to a wide range of students. (You’ll need to log in to the SU website first.)
“We, as student leaders, unreservedly support the Students’ Union’s Invest for Change campaign. We believe that profiting off the fossil fuel industry is immoral and not in line with students’ interests. 100 out of 153 UK universities have already pledged to divest: in order to demonstrate its commitment to climate justice, Royal Holloway should join this established higher education movement in order to pressure the fossil fuel industry. We call upon College Council to listen to the voices of students by divesting from fossil fuels, setting meaningful impact investment targets, and practicing active stakeholder engagement as part of a robust response to the climate crisis.”
Sign the statement
Send this template email to your lecturers and departmental staff to lobby them to sign the staff statement of support.
The deadline for both is 9am on Tuesday 21 Feb.
Last November, I took a paper to Investment Subcommittee (a subcommittee of Council) with these recommendations. The committee will be choosing whether to adopt them in our next meeting in March. I will be taking both the student and staff statements to show the strength of feeling on this topic! I will keep you updated on how it goes…
Here's a simple diagram that summarises what I’m lobbying for:
