1. Divest, Reinvestment and Next Steps for the 5 Colleges

2. Welcome! Introductions Name
Preferred Pronoun (she/her, he/him, they/them, or other)
Affiliation (optional)
Why are you here today?
Emily
If <20 people, go around the room and everyone introduce themselves
If >20 people, turn to your neighbor (or stand up and find someone you don’t know) and introduce yourself

3. Overview Intro to Fossil Fuel Divestment - 15 min General Q&A - 10 min
Definition, importance, strategy, history
General Q&A - 10 min
Focus on regional campaigns - 15 min
Yale
Amherst
Smith
Q&A for campaigns - 10 min
Discussion & Closing - 15 min
Emily

4. Divestment
“The act of selling all of one’s shares of a given company or type of asset, for an explicit social or political reason”
- Responsible Endowments Coalition
Emily

5. Endowments 101
Eleanor
$1.8 billion endowment, 6.8% (over $100 million) in fossil fuels
Investure, private management firm for nonprofits, 13 clients totalling $12 billion, including Smith, Middlebury, Dickinson, and Barnard
Smith was Investure’s first (2004) and largest client, close relationship b/c helped start

6. Why fossil fuels? Eleanor
Many of us are exposed to these images, and all the usual reasons to dislike fossil fuels: global warming, melting glaciers, sea level rise, oil spills. DSC strives to address a much wider range of issues with which the fossil fuel industry is less frequently associated

7. Corruption of democratic process
Eleanor
Lobbying against renewable energy incentives, trillions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies, direct or indirect contributions to politicians to support fossil fuel interests
lobbying and corruption of democratic process, money in the gov.

8. Climate refugees Eliana
people are losing their homes to severe weather events (worsened by global warming), and flooding, from rising sea levels. Just this year, for the first time, New Zealand granted refugee status to people from the island nation of Tuvalu who had to flee their homes because of rising seas

9. Extreme extraction techniques
Eliana
Not just combustion, but also extraction and distribution of fossil fuels destroys communities and the environment
Spills in the gulf… but also, lesser known: Mountaintop removal, marginalization of people in appalachia. Polluted water from fracking

10. Exploitation Eliana Environmental injustice and environmental racism
Coal-fired power plants are often placed in areas with low property value, which are disproportionately people of color.
Even nearby in Holyoke, there was a coal-fired power plant until 2014 that polluted the air with higher concentrations of heavy metals. One in four children in Holyoke suffered from asthma.

11. This is a human issue... Eliana
that is why our symbol is an orange square, not a green one. This is not just an environmental issue, it is a human issue. we are campaigning for social justice.

12. Why divestment?
Emily
By divesting from fossil fuels, institutions communicate to the fossil fuel industry that we will not stand for the destruction of the environment, the marginalization of human beings, or the corruption of our democratic process, we need to use their language- and they speak in money.
Trying to make a statement to policy makers - Stigmatize the fossil fuel industry

13. History of the Movement
First fossil fuel divestment campaign
Swarthmore Mountain Justice in 2010
Divestment movement takes off in 2012
Bill McKibben of 350.org published “Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math” in Rolling Stone
“Do the Math” tour visits 21 cities
Eleanor

14. Divestinvest.org Eliana
Schools, foundations, religious institutions, cities, towns, individuals…
Divestinvest.org

15. Who has divested from fossil fuels?
Eliana
Also Syracuse University, Guardian Media Group
Notable partial divestments in state school systems (Maine, CA, MA)

16. Earlier this year: UMass!
Emily (if no UMass people)
They had been asking their board to vote on divestment repeatedly and finally last Spring, they decided to take big action -

17. Questions?
(about fossil fuel divestment in general)
Emily

19. Divest Amherst

20. Divest Smith College Eliana
Divest Smith College (DSC) is a student-led network of Smith College community members working towards divesting our endowment from the fossil fuel industry.

21. Our mission
We call on Smith College to (1) freeze any new investment in fossil-fuel companies, and (2) commit now to divest within five years from direct ownership and from any commingled funds that include fossil-fuel public equities and corporate bonds.
Eliana

22. Smithstory of divestment
Companies tied to the apartheid in South Africa
Big tobacco
Sudan
Emily
Apartheid 1980s
Big tobacco 1990s
Divested from oil companies tied to the Sudanese government in 2007

23. What We’ve Done Student Body Referendum
$1 million in sustainable investment fund
Now $8.5 million!
Student Government Association Resolution
Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility
Independent analysis on impact of fossil fuel divestment
30% of faculty signed petition
Eleanor

24. What are we doing? Engaging with…
Students & alums
Faculty & staff
Community members
Cross-campaign collaboration (esp. Investure coalition)
Actions & events
Meet with admins & trustees
Emily

25. The Intersection Series
Fossil Fuels and Institutional Racism
Climate Crisis and Gender
Climate Change, Conflict, and Migration
Next event: October 21
OPEN TO THE PUBLIC!!!!!
Eliana
1: Jacqui patterson, head of the NAACP climate and environmental justice program, came to talk about how the corrupt practices of the fossil fuel industry and environmental destruction disproportionately affect people of color and low-income communities

26. Taking Steps to a Renewable Future
NO MORE PIPELINES
Emily

27. Contact us! #DivestSmithCollege www.divestsmithcollege.com

28. Questions for our presenters?
(about the campaigns at Yale, Amherst, Smith, or even UMass)
Eleanor

29. What do YOU think...
How is the fossil fuel divestment movement contributing to the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy?
How can we make the conversation about climate change and sustainability more focused on justice and intersectionality?
What is stopping more institutions from divesting from fossil fuels?
How can the public support fossil fuel divestment campaigns at colleges, universities, and other institutions?
Eliana