An open letter to the President of Imperial College London
We are writing to you as staff, students and alumni of Imperial College London, as we are concerned that the university endowment fund is investing heavily in fossil fuels.
An open letter to the President of Imperial College London
Dear Professor Sir Keith O’Nions,
We are writing to you as staff, students and alumni of Imperial College London, as we are concerned that the university endowment fund is investing heavily in fossil fuels. Imperial College's £79.1m million endowment fund is the UK's 10th largest, and £4,356,285 of this is directly being invested in oil, coal and gas. Imperial has no ethical investment policy.
We call on Imperial to:
- Immediately freeze any new investment in fossil fuel companies.
- Divest from current directly owned shares and any co-mingled funds that invest in fossil fuel companies within 5 years.
Imperial College is currently ranked 113th in People & Planet's Green League, reflecting a lack of commitment to environmental issues. Imperial is a world-leading institution in environmental and climate change research, and we feel the college fund should reflect this and not be investing in resources that are the root cause of climate change. Why is this important?
Climate change has been described as the most serious challenge of our generation. Under the United Nations Copenhagen Accord, countries have agreed to limit warming to 2 degrees to prevent dangerous climate change.
Climate change has been described as the most serious challenge of our generation. Under the United Nations Copenhagen Accord, countries have agreed to limit warming to 2 degrees to prevent dangerous climate change. Moreover, investing in fossil fuels poses a serious financial risk. According to recent research led by Professor Lord Stern at LSE, two-thirds of current fossil fuels reserves are unburnable if climate change is to be kept to the globally-agreed limit of 2 degrees of warming.
In this regard, we call upon the new president of Imperial College London to set a new precedent by working with the Endowment Fund Board to issue explicit guidance to ensure funds are divested away from fossil fuels.
Signed by 126 signatories made up of staff, students, and university alumni. Search for Divest Imperial from fossil fuels at: gofossilfree.org to add your signature.
