TO DIVEST FROM FOSSIL FUELS, UEA MUST DIVEST FROM BARCLAYS

Posted on September 8, 2020 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged Barclays, BP, careers events, climate change, climate emergency, Divest Barclays, divestment, education, employment, energy, engineering, ethical investment, featured, fossil free, Fossil Free UEA, fossil fuels, graduates, higher education, Loughborough University, media, norwich, oil, people and planet, Portsmouth University, recruitment, Shell, student activism, students, students' unions, UEA, universities, zero carbon.

By Henry Webb

Higher Education institutions have the power to decide whether the fossil fuel industry lives or dies. The dominant players in the energy sector may seem unstoppable. After all, as long as the oil keeps flowing, they’ll find someone to buy it. Their lobbyists will make sure of that. But these behemoths require resources beyond those of just the raw coal, oil, and gas that we are so dependent on – they need capital. Without investment banks to finance everything from pipelines to offshore rigs, the costly infrastructure needed for fossil fuel extraction just wouldn’t exist.

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UEA: BANKING ON IMMORALITY

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged Apartheid, banking, Barclays Bank, BDS, boycott, climate change, climate research, Dakota Access Pipeline, divest, Divest Barclays, divestment, Elbit Systems, environment, environmentalism, Ethical Consumer, ethical consumption, ethical investment, ethics, extreme fossil fuels, finance, fossil free, Fossil Free UEA, fossil fuels, fracking, Green, investment, israel, Israeli-Palestine conflict, morality, norwich, occupation, palestine, people and planet, profit, profiteering, Ryedale, sanctions, Sheffield Students' Union, student money, students' unions, Third Energy, tuition fees, UEA, UEA SU, war, yorkshire.

If it’s not one thing it’s another with UEA. Weeks after their announcement that they’ve finally divested from fossil fuel companies, People and Planet UEA have discovered that the university has nearly £23 million invested with Barclays Bank. This won’t be particularly surprising to most – there is a branch on campus after all – but it shows the university’s ongoing decision to disregard the unfolding environmental and ethical situation of the world it operates in.

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DIRTY MONEY – HOW ETHICAL ARE OUR UNIVERSITIES’ INVESTMENTS?

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Norwich Radical in Student and tagged BHP Billiton, BP, business, climate change, curriculum, direct action, divestment, education, energy, energy policy, Erasmus University, ethical investment, ethics, ExxonMobil, fossil free, fossil fuel industry, fossil fuels, global, global community, global warming, growth, higher education, hunger strike, innovation, investment, King's College London, lobbying, local, money, morality, non-profit universities, Norwich University of the Arts, occupation, People & Planet, progress, renewable energy, renewables research, research, research funding, Rio Tinto, Roger Hallam, Rotterdam School of Management, Shell, student activism, students, sustainability, tuition fees, universities, university community, University of East Anglia, venture capital.

Each university is different from one another. Moreover, they are very different from most other institutions of all types. On one hand they are educational institutions; on the other they are businesses. As businesses they make investments, though this is not something we would usually think of as a priority of educators. It is worth taking the time to investigate what your university is truly involved with and if their investments are ethical, not only for moral peace of mind but also to have a clearer idea of what your tuition fees are being put toward.

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