Dear Vice-Chancellor & the Board of Governors,
We are writing to you as staff of the University of Manchester to add our voices to the two-thousand strong student petition that has already called for the university to end its investment in the fossil fuel industry and actively reinvest in socially and environmentally responsible funds. We urge the Board to assess this industry more carefully in accordance with our Policy for Socially Responsible Investment as we believe it to be environmentally degrading and socially irresponsible [1]. This would be a major positive step for the university in seriously committing to its third core goal of social responsibility.
Taking into account various considerations such as:
- Scientists have demonstrated that 60-80% of fossil fuel reserves must remain underground if the crucial threshold of two degrees of warming is to be avoided [2].
- The business model of fossil fuel companies is currently incompatible with a safe climate, they show unwillingness to engage with or adjust to this scenario [3][4] and we believe divestment will more readily encourage the necessary transition to a low carbon economy.
- Climate change presents an international challenge and our institution must take all appropriate actions to mitigate for the associated risks.
- The Bank of England has warned of the financial risks of investing in assets which may become ‘stranded’ due to government policy [5]. These comments have been echoed by the Energy & Climate Change secretary who has voiced support for divestment campaigns [6].
- 42 cities, 26 Universities & Colleges, 72 religious organisations and 48 other institutions (with total assets of over $50bn) have already committed to divesting.
- Removing fossil fuels would reduce the volatility of our portfolio and have little effect on the rate of return of our investment [7].
We believe this is a tremendous opportunity for the University of Manchester to demonstrate decisive and forward-thinking leadership on one of the most pressing global issues of our time. We hope you will give serious consideration to our students’ demands that the University commit to freezing new investment in fossil fuel companies and divesting within 5 years from the top 200 fossil fuel companies that control the majority of carbon reserves.
Signed,
Prof Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change
Dr Steven Jones, Senior Lecturer in Education
Dr Antonio Fortin, Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Dr Veronique Pin-Fat, Senior Lecturer in International Politics
Dr Daniel Welch, Research Associate, Sustainable Consumption Institute
Sophie A. Lewis, PhD candidate and GTA (SEED)
Dr Jim Boran, EPS Researcher Development Manager
Matthew Stallard, PhD Researcher
Prof John Aplin, Professor of Reproductive Biomedicine
Jeanette Winterson, Professor of Creative Writing
Dr Hal Gladfelder, Senior Lecturer in 18th & 19th Century Literature & Culture
Dr John Broderick, Knowledge Exchange Fellow, School of MACE, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester
Prof Peter J Eccles, Professor of Mathematics
Gemma Moss, Graduate Teaching Assistant
Neil Briggs, Applications Analyst, IT Services
Prof Nicholas Goddard, Professor of Analytical Science
Dr Deborah Talmi, Lecturer
Prof Ian Miles, Professor of Technological Innovation and Social Change, MBS
Reynard Spiess, Experimental Officer
William F. Lamb, PhD Researcher
Dr Wiebke Brockhaus-Grand, Senior Lecturer
Jo Lowe, Clinical Trial Project Manager
Dr Richie Nimmo, Lecturer in Sociology
James Schumm, IT Officer
Dr Peter Knight, Senior Lecturer in American Studies
Dr Chris Westrup, Senior Lecturer, MBS
James Anderson, Study Co-ordinator
Mary Begley, PhD Student, GTA, LEL
Dr Jonathan Dewsbury, Lecturer
Prof Roseanne McNamee, Professor of Epidemiological Statistics
Ruth Costello, Research Assistant
Rebecca Hays, Research Associate
Dr Eithne Quinn, Senior Lecturer in American Studies
Dr J. Michelle Coghlan, Lecturer in 19th-Century American Literature & Culture
Dr Howard Booth, Senior Lecturer in English Literature
Dr Fred Schurink, Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature
Dr Will Turner, Graduate Teaching Assistant, English & American Studies
Prof Laura Doan, Professor of Cultural History, EAC
Dr Natalie Zacek, Senior Lecturer in American Studies
Dr Robert Spencer, Lecturer in Postcolonial Literature and Culture
Dr Jerome de Groot, Senior Lecturer
Dr Ian McGuire, Co-Director, Centre for New Writing
Dr Noelle Gallagher, Lecturer in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture
Dr Carl Death, Senior Lecturer in International Politics
Dr Ruth Wood, Lecturer in Environment and Climate Change
Dr Nicholas Turnbull, Lecturer
Dr Aoileann Ni Mhurchu, Lecturer in International Politics
Prof Douglas Kell, Research Professor in Bioanalytical Science
Dr Suzanne Marie Embury, Senior Lecturer
Dr Roger George Noble, Software Engineer
Prof Brian Saunders, Professor of Polymer and Colloid Science
Dr David Moss, Honorary Reader in Mathematics
Dr Bram Vanhoutte, Research Associate, CMIST
Prof Stefan Bouzarovski, Professor of Geography
Jon Shute, Lecturer
Dr Judith Hebron, Research Fellow and Lecturer
Prof Helen Beebee, Samuel Hall Professor of Philosophy
Dr Benjamin J Coe, Reader in Chemistry
John McAuliffe, Reader in Modern Literature and Creative Writing
Dr David Harris, Reader in Mathematics
Sam Tygier, Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Stephanie Collins, Lecturer in Political Theory
Daniel Wilson, Technician
Dr Iain Brassington, Senior Lecturer, School of Law
Dr Lee Margetts, Lecturer, School of MACE
Gwyneth Lonergan, PhD Candidate
Dr Simone Turchetti, Lecturer on History of Science & Climate Change
Prof Chris Parkes, Professor of Physics
Dr Tom McClelland, Postdoctoral Researcher
Dr Althea Wilkinson, SKA SADT Consortium Project Manager
Dr Ann Whittle, Lecturer in Philosophy
Dr Mike Ingleson, Reader and Royal Society University Research Fellow
Dr Richard Child, Lecturer in Political Theory
Dr Liam Shields, Lecturer in Political Theory
Prof Pedro Mendes, Professor of Computational Systems Biology
Prof John O’Neill, Hallsworth Chair In Political Economy
Dr Laurence Stamford, Lecturer in Sustainable Chemical Engineering
Helen Breewood, PhD Candidate
Dr Michael Sanders, Senior Lecturer
Stephen P Blatch, Technician
Dr Christopher Blanford, Lecturer in Biomaterials
Dr Simeon Gill, Lecturer in Fashion Technology
Professor Paul Mummery, Chair in Nuclear Materials
Prof Stephen Bottoms, Professor of Contemporary Theatre & Performance
Prof Ross D. King, Professor of Machine Intelligence
Prof Nicholas John Higham, Emeritus Professor of History
Dr Peter Cooke, Senior Lecturer in French
Jane Mortimer, DL/Collaborative Admin Assistant
Dr Clara Dawson, Lecturer in English Literature and Poetry
Jonathan Crosier, Research Fellow
Prof Nigel Ray, Professor of Pure Mathematics
Dr Kevin Gillan, Lecturer in Sociology
Dr Christian Schemmel, Lecturer in Political Theory
Dr Miriam Ronzoni, Senior Lecturer in Political Theory
Dr Hayley Bradley, Teaching Fellow References
Marc Hudson, PhD Candidate
References
- The University of Manchester, Policy for Socially Responsible Investment
http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/display.aspx?DocID=659
- Carbon Tracker, Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets, 2013
http://www.carbontracker.org/report/wasted-capital-and-stranded-assets/
- Jonathon Porritt, The Guardian, It is ‘impossible’ for today’s big oil companies to adapt to climate change, January 2015
- Mat Hope, The Carbon Brief, What the fossil fuel industry thinks of the ‘carbon bubble’, July 2014
- Paul Fisher, Speech from Economist’s Insurance Summit, Confronting the challenges of tomorrow’s world, March 2015
http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/speeches/2015/speech804.pdf
- Terry Macalister, The Guardian, Ed Davey backs Guardian climate change campaign, March 2015
- Patrick Geddes et al, Aperio Group, Building a carbon-free equity portfolio, 2014 https://www.aperiogroup.com/resource/138/node/download
University of Manchester Fossil Free Campaign 
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