Georgetown University To Divest From Coal
Georgetown University announced last week that it intended to divest from all coal mining businesses, but proponents of the University’s full divestment are still unhappy.
According to a resolution passed by the Georgetown’s board of directors, “the University will not make or continue any direct investments of endowment funds [worth $1.5 billion as of April 30, 2015] in” companies “whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy production.”
Furthermore, the University intends to “explore the question of socially responsible investment” and aims to continue “to address critical sustainability challenges in [their] local and global communities through academic research and through its own institutional operations by reducing its environmental footprint.”
“As a Catholic and Jesuit university, we are called to powerfully engage the world, human culture and the environment — bringing to bear the intellectual and spiritual resources upon which our community is built,” said Georgetown President John J. DeGioia.
“The work of understanding and responding to the demands of climate change is urgent and complex,” DeGioi continued. “It requires our most serious attention. As a university community, we can best respond to this evolving and ongoing challenge when we embrace the tensions embedded in this work – and the variety of perspectives that are present – as we seek an ever deeper understanding of how to respond best in ways that contribute to the common good.”
However, GU Fossil Free, a group dedicated “to advocate for the divestment of Georgetown’s endowment from the top 200 oil, coal, and gas companies based on proven reserves,” was not impressed by the decision. According to the University’s own resolution, “an insubstantial portion of the University’s endowment is now directly invested in companies whose principal business is the mining of coal for use in energy production.” Divesting from such activity is, unsurprisingly, seen as something of a non-step forward.
“GU Fossil Free maintains that this is not a victory,” the group wrote on a lengthy Facebook post following the University’s announcement. In a stinging attack, the group added, “This decision is morally indefensible. It relies on indiscriminate moral distinctions between coal and oil/gas companies and greatly weakens the political tactic that divestment provides.”
Georgetown University was clearly expecting a tongue-lashing from its detractors, as its lengthy press release expounding the virtues of Georgetown’s environmental work lists a number of achievements, including four LEED green building certifications and the distinction of being the “second largest green power user of all campuses in the country” according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
However GU Fossil Free’s comments are hard to ignore, considering the lackluster effect of divesting from an already “insubstantial” value of coal investments. As the group notes, “GU Fossil Free looks forward to urging Georgetown to make the right decision.”
Image Credit: via ehpien, Flickr, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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