Fossil fuel divestment at the University of Guelph
For those of you who don’t know, the University of Guelph invests in 55 different fossil fuel companies, including Kinder Morgan, Enbridge, BP, Shell, and Suncor. Currently, the university has around $30 million invested in these companies.
A group on campus has been working for years to change this and to get the University to divest from all fossil fuel companies. Over the past four years, Fossil Free Guelph has:
- Tabled
- Flyered
- Collected signatures
- Held a CSA referendum
- Organized marches
- Made presentations to administration
The results of the CSA referendum showed a large amount of student support, with 72 per cent of students who voted indicating that they agreed the University should divest.The divestment movement originated from the opposition to apartheid in South Africa when institutions were pressured to cut ties with companies associated with South Africa to show global solidarity against apartheid.
The goal was similar to sanctions imposed by governments: to indicate disapproval and influence the actions of South Africa; however, the divestment movement was organized at a grassroots level and driven by the dedication of citizens across the world who wanted to make a difference. Interestingly, a divestment group was organizing in Guelph at the time, but the University rejected calls for divestment from the South African regime.
Use of the tactic of divestment has also been applied in the current Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to show solidarity with Palestine against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.
Additionally, divestment has been a very effective tactic used against fossil fuel companies in an attempt to shift the global economy towards the use of renewable energy.The idea is that individuals can encourage institutions that they are a part of to remove investments from fossil fuels to indicate that these industries no longer have the support of the public.Globally, $5.5 trillion has been divested from fossil fuels. Countries, companies, universities, unions, churches, and other groups have all been involved in removing their investments from fossil fuel companies.
The University of Guelph’s response to calls for fossil fuel divestment has been bureaucratic with many steps along the way.
In 2015, it began with the university forming the Working Group on Responsible Investing, which was tasked with looking at issues related to investments in general.
Then, in 2016, the university created a Special Action Policy (SAP) in response to recommendations from the working group of 2015. The SAP allows a formal request to be made to analyze investments in specific industries.
Now all that organizing is reaching its conclusion. Fossil Free Guelph made submissions at all possible points throughout this lengthy process, culminating with a SAP request in April of 2017.
The requirement for this submission was 200 signatures total, including 20 signatures from three of the four designated stakeholder groups: students, staff, faculty, and alumni.
A formal report was also prepared addressing areas such as:
- Fiduciary duty
- Human rights violations
- Environmental impacts
- The role the university has as an institution to lead societal change
At the moment, the university administration has formed a committee to look into the issue of divestment from fossil fuels. This committee has been tasked with collecting public feedback and making a definitive decision by December.By the end of the year, we will know whether or not divestment will happen at the University of Guelph.
All students, workers, alumni, community members, and campus organizations have the chance to submit a comment on divestment from fossil fuels.
Feedback can be sent to CSAR@uoguelph.ca until Oct. 27.
Image courtesy of Fossil Free Guelph