Fossil fuel divestment: implications for the future of sustainability discourse and action within higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper provides a critical overview and analysis of the student-led fossil fuel divestment (FFD) movement and its impact on sustainability discourse and actions within US higher education. Analysing higher education institutes’ (HEIs) divestment press releases and news reports shows how institutional alignment with cultures of sustainability and social justice efforts played key roles in HEIs’ decisions to divest from fossil fuels. Key stated reasons for rejection were: minimal or unknown impact of divestment, risk to the endowment, and fiduciary duty. Participant observation and interviews with protagonists reveal the intricate power structures and vested business interests that influence boardroom divestment decision-making. While some HEIs embrace transformative climate actions, we contend that higher education largely embraces a business-as-usual sustainability framework characterised by a reformist green-economy discourse and a reluctance to move beyond business-interest responses to climate politics. Nonetheless, the FFD movement is pushing HEIs to move from compliance-oriented sustainability behaviour towards a more proactive and highly politicised focus on HEIs’ stance in the modern fossil fuel economy. We offer conceptual approaches and practical directions for reorienting sustainability within HEIs to prioritise the intergenerational equity of its students and recognise climate change as a social justice issue. Fully integrating sustainability into the core business of HEIs requires leadership to address fundamental moral questions of both equity and responsibility for endowment investments. We contend that HEIs must re-evaluate their role in averting catastrophic climate change, and extend their influence in catalysing public climate discourse and actions through a broader range of external channels, approaches, and actors.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• climate change
• fossil fuel divestment
• sustainability
• justice and ethics

Acknowledgements

The authors would sincerely like to thank Prof. Avi Chomsky, Prof. Marcos Luna, Prof. Gregory Trencher, Dr Ben Franta, John O’Sullivan, and Joe McGuire for their helpful insights in preparing this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Noel Healy http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2933-5723

Jessica Debski http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7820-9061

Notes

1 On 22 October 2015, the guidance stated that, although collateral goals of ESG investing may be considered only as “tie-breakers”, when choosing between otherwise equal investment alternatives,

environmental, social, and governance issues may have a direct relationship to the economic value of the plan’s investment. In these instances, such issues are not merely collateral considerations or tie-breakers, but rather are proper components of the fiduciary’s primary analysis of the economic merits of competing investment choices. (Goldman Sachs 2015, p. 2)