Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard is a coalition of students, alumni, and faculty fighting for a just and sustainable future. We won a major victory in 2021 when we got Harvard to divest its endowment from fossil fuels. But we are still fighting for Harvard to become a true climate leader.
Why did Harvard Divest?
Divestment is the opposite of an investment – it simply means getting rid of stocks, bonds, or investment funds that are unethical or morally ambiguous. Campaigns for divestment have a long and proud history: there have been divestment campaigns for the tobacco industry, South African apartheid, and genocide in Darfur, as well as the fossil fuel industry. Current campus divestment movements include divestment from the prison-industrial complex and from occupied Palestine.
FFDH campaigned for Harvard’s divestment for nearly a decade. In 2021, Harvard admitted that investments in the fossil fuel industry were incompatible with Harvard’s mission, and allowed those investments to expire.
Fossil fuel divestment stigmatizes the fossil fuel industry for its culpability in the climate crisis and frames climate change as a moral crisis. By naming this industry’s singularly destructive influence — and by highlighting the moral dimensions of climate change — the fossil fuel divestment movement aims to shatter the hold that the fossil fuel industry has on our economy and our governments.
And Harvard’s divestment has made a huge impact since 2021: dozens of other institutions have committed to divestment in the wake of this historic victory. When Harvard allows itself to be a leader, others follow.
Why does more work still need to be done?
Harvard has the institutional power to do much more in service to our planet, and as the climate crisis worsens, it has the obligation to act on that power. As long as Harvard has any ties to the fossil fuel industry — as long as it takes money from oil companies for climate research, as long as it allows them to recruit students on campus, and as long as its administrators and corporation members continue to consult for them and hold positions on their boards — Harvard gives the industry social license to operate. Harvard remains complicit in their climate abuses.
Harvard also has positive work to do in cultivating a just and sustainable future. As a nonprofit, Harvard has a duty to work in the best interests of its students and shareholders. That means investing its vast financial resources in sustainability and good community development. It also means listening to its community, which is why we deem democratization to be a necessary step.
Why should we care?
We only get one Earth. It’s up to us to protect our planet and all of its inhabitants from the damaging effects of the fossil fuel industry, a chief perpetrator of climate change, by pushing for dissociation and reinvestment. When Harvard takes a stand against the fossil fuel industry, we show the country and world that we refuse to be complicit in the continued war on human and environmental health.
