Great news and congrats to the students who made this happen:
Stanford to Purge $18 Billion Endowment of Coal Stock
By MICHAEL WINESMAY 6, 2014
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The campus of Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif. The decision by trustees to get rid of stock in coal-mining companies was a victory for a rapidly growing student-led divestment movement.
Stanford University announced Tuesday that it would divest its $18.7 billion endowment of stock in coal-mining companies, becoming the first major university to lend support to a nationwide campaign to purge endowments and pension funds of fossil fuel investments.
The university said it acted in accordance with internal guidelines that allow its trustees to consider whether “corporate policies or practices create substantial social injury” when choosing investments. Coal’s status as a major source of carbon pollution linked to climate change persuaded the trustees to remove companies “whose principal business is coal” from their investment portfolio, the university said.
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Stanford’s associate vice president for communications, Lisa Lapin, said the decision covers about 100 companies worldwide that derive the majority of their revenue from coal extraction. Not all of those companies are in the university’s investment portfolio, whose structure is private, she said. Over all, the university’s coal holdings are a small fraction of its endowment.
“But a small percentage is still a substantial amount of money,” she added.
The trustees’ decision carries more symbolic than financial weight, but it is a major victory for a rapidly growing student-led divestment movement that is now active at roughly 300 universities.
At least 11 small universities have elected to remove fossil-fuel stocks from their endowments, but none approaches Stanford’s prestige or national influence. Tuesday’s decision seems likely to increase the pressure on other major universities to follow suit.
Among other universities, Harvard has resisted student pressure for divestment, and one student was arrested on Thursday after pro-divestment activists blockaded the entrance to the school’s administrative offices.
Stanford’s trustees acted after Fossil Free Stanford, the campus branch of the movement, petitioned the board to re-evaluate the university’s holdings in energy companies, Ms. Lapin said.
Yari Greaney, 20, a Fossil Free Stanford organizer, said the group was “very proud of Stanford taking this leadership position.” Nationally, leaders of the divestment movement praised the school for its decision.
As a global institution, Stanford “knows the havoc that climate change creates around our planet,” Bill McKibben, the president and co-founder of the environmental group 350.org, said in a statement. “Other forward-looking and internationally minded institutions will follow, I’m sure.” |
