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The Time to Divest is Now

Divestment. So much has been written on the subject that it can get confusing as to what it really means and why it’s perhaps the number one issue debated on college campuses across the country. Before trying to answer either of those questions, let’s first define some terms. Divest is the opposite of invest, so we’re talking about eliminating financial investments. As it relates to colleges and universities, divestment refers to the institution’s endowment, or the “legal structure for managing, and in many cases indefinitely perpetuating, a pool of investments” (thanks Wikipedia!). Essentially, a university receives money (donations from alumni, etc.) and invests it all over the place. Those investments pay returns, and that’s part of the way colleges pay the bills and save money for their future.  

Divestment on college campuses isn’t a new idea—tobacco investments and those in South Africa during the time of Apartheid are perhaps the two most historically infamous. Today’s divestment movement is squarely aimed at getting fossil fuel investments out of university endowments, and it’s the “fossil fuel” part that positions this discussion as perhaps the most serious and heated (no pun intended) of the last decade. Environmental issues (as well as those addressing equality and social justice) are no stranger to college life, but as "green” awareness has been adopted by huge swaths of the mainstream culture, student activists have evolved into well-organized and politically astute movements with real power to sway public and on-campus opinion. 

Ando enthusiastically supports the divestment movement, as we believe that “green” investments in areas like renewable energy and regenerative farming are not just good for the environment, but the global economy as well. Fossil fuels may have made sense in the past, but the science is clear and the argument settled—the devastating effects of climate change pose a threat to every living thing on earth. It’s the job of leaders...public, private, and collegiate...to do everything possible to minimize carbon emissions, stabilize the environment, and provide for the more sustainable future we envision for ourselves.  

With the deadly effects of climate change (wild fires, hurricanes, heatwaves, rising sea levels, etc.) ravaging every corner of the country and planet, these points are getting increasingly difficult to justify, and we should remember that, as President Barak Obama said, “The shift to a cleaner energy economy won’t happen overnight, and it will require tough choices along the way. But the debate is settled. Climate change is a fact. And when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world, with new sources of energy, I want us to be able to say yes, we did.”