Fossil Fuel Divestment movement heating up at the University of Guelph

Roughly $33 million* of the University’s endowment and pension funds is invested in coal, oil, and natural gas, in a total of 41 different fossil fuel companies*. Investments include well-known companies such as: Shell, BP, Exxon, Suncor, and Kinder Morgan.

Fossil Free Guelph is a student-run group that has been campaigning for over four years to get the University of Guelph to stop investments in fossil fuel companies. The demand of the group is an immediate freeze on all new investments in fossil fuels and a period of five years to organize full divestment from coal, oil, and natural gas. After years of collecting input, the University of Guelph created a Special Action Policy that allows stakeholders to officially bring forward demands for divestment from specific industries or companies. Fossil Free Guelph is the first group to use this policy after submitting a request in April 2017.Once the complaint was received, the University created an ad hoc committee tasked with reviewing evidence and reaching a conclusion on how to move forward. Exactly 134 comments were sent in during the public feedback period held in Fall 2017. The deadline for the final decision from this committee was set for the end of 2017. Their official recommendation was released on Jan. 16, 2018 which read, in part: “The committee recommends that the Board of Governors maintain its general approach to investing the university’s endowment funds and refrain from implementing a policy of blanket divestment from those companies listed in Fossil Free Guelph’s expression of concern, or from the fossil fuel sector more broadly.”

The ad hoc committee relayed their recommendation to the finance committee of the Board of Governors in late December 2017. The full Board of Governors will now have the final say on whether to accept, reject, or modify the recommendation. This meeting for the final decision on divestment will occur on Jan. 23, 2018.

Spencer McGregor is a member of Fossil Free Guelph.

*These statistics have been updated since the print version of The Ontarion has been distributed, and now accurately reflect U of G’s current investments in fossil fuel companies. 

Logo courtesy of Fossil Free Canada