The student group GU Fossil Free released the final draft of a proposal titled “Divesting Georgetown’s Endowment from Fossil Fuels” on August 19. The 35-page document is the culmination of a two-year campaign to compel the University to abandon funding from companies that produce fossil fuels, an initiative similar to efforts at schools including Harvard, Vassar, and Swarthmore. In addition to its practical goals and multilateral approach, the proposal charts a practical course toward environmental responsibility—a march in which Georgetown should assume leadership.
The multi-campus divestment campaign has received support not only from college students, but also from academics and policy experts—a multifaceted approach reflected by GU Fossil Free’s newest proposal. A recent article in the Harvard Political Review concluded that “divestment from select fossil fuel producers would send a powerful message to the energy industry and the nation” and show that “America’s universities take the climate-energy challenge seriously.”
The current proposal dates to May 2013, when GU Fossil Free released a first draft to the campus community and later engaged Georgetown students, administrators, alumni, faculty, and the University’s Committee on Investments and Social Responsibility in discussions about feasibly implementing its recommendations.
The revised proposal addresses head-on the financial risks of divestment and the notion that divestment would financially threaten the University’s endowment. Citing the shifting sands of environmental resources, changing social and market norms, and government and legal consequences, the proposal concludes that not only are the negative effects of divestment negligible but that doing so would actually increase the overall financial security of the University’s endowment because of the high risk of fossil fuel investments.
Nevertheless, divestment alone will not curb fossil fuel companies’ consumption of natural resources, nor will it wholly alter their market behavior. As a recent Huffington Post column argues, these companies will continue to profit from less squeamish investors until divestment fever reaches a critical mass. Moreover, GU Fossil Free’s proposal does nothing to combat investment from coal companies, which currently accounts for the greatest amount of atmospheric pollution.
In its conclusion, however, the proposal persuasively argues that divestment is a necessary step towards addressing global climate change that also poses minimal financial risk. The pedigree of colleges that have pursued divestment is currently small and the number of Catholic universities to have done so is smaller still. In late June, the University of Dayton became the first Catholic college in the United States to divest from fossil fuels, a move praised both by ecologists and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Just last month, even Pope Francis branded the exploitation of the natural world a “sin … of our time.” A decision to begin to divest Georgetown’s Endowment Fund from its fossil fuel company holdings could have profound positive implications for both the future of the University as well as that of the planet.
