Statement in Support of Fossil Fuel Divestment at Harvard University


As a company with extensive experience in engaging with fossil fuel companies, we have concluded that years of shareholder advocacy with this sector has yielded little in the way of results and offers little hope for the future. The fossil fuel industry has refused requests by shareholders for more than 20 years to set meaningful limits on its exploration, extraction, and emissions. Like the tobacco industry, from which Harvard divested its holdings in the 1990s, fossil fuel companies have proven themselves to be impervious to attempts to divert them from their core business. Engagement stands little chance of persuading them to alter their destructive course within the urgent time frame that they must act. Should Harvard pursue a path of engagement, we believe it should do so with eyes wide open and the least number of shares required to do so.
Whether or not Harvard chooses to engage with fossil fuel companies, if it does not substantially divest, the University will still be left grappling with the uncomfortable fact that its endowment is both financing and profiting from the industry with the greatest vested interest in slowing the transition to a low-carbon economy.
Divestment and reinvestment offer the more promising path toward making the University’s endowment policy consistent with its leadership in so many other efforts to combat climate change. We commend and stand by those members of the Harvard community in their pursuit of this goal.