University claims its plan, which promises to end all investments in fossil fuel companies by 2022 and fully decarbonise its investments by 2038, goes ‘further than other fossil fuel divestment programmes’. The global divestment movement has celebrated another victory after the University of Manchester confirmed it will end all of its investments in fossil fuel companies by 2022 and fully decarbonise its portfolio by 2038.
The changes to the university’s Socially Responsible Investment Policy, unveiled on Tuesday, include a commitment from the institution to reduce the carbon intensity of its portfolio by 30 per cent by 2022 before moving “as quickly as possible” to net zero. The university said it intends to meet its decarbonisation ambition by redirecting share investments from carbon-intensive companies to those that are more carbon efficient. The policy, it said, goes “further than other fossil fuel divestment programmes”.
The new investment criteria come after years of campaigning from students and were implemented following a consultation of staff, students, and alumni held earlier this year. The policy was developed with the university’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Students’ Union. University president and vice-chancellor Dame Nancy Rothwell said: “I am delighted that after lengthy consultation and discussions, we can now launch our ambitious new investment policy and I am very grateful to all who have worked so hard on this.”
The university divestment movement, which began in 2012, celebrated a major milestone in the UK in January when it was confirmed that more than half of the nation’s public universities had committed to end investments to fossil fuels in some form or another. The University of Oxford was one of the latest academic institutions to join the growing band in April when it promised to divest its multi-billion pound endowment from fossil fuels and enact a new investment policy that asks companies for evidence of their net zero business plans.
Source: Business Green
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