100 signatures reached
To: SU Investment Committee
Fossil Free Stellenbosch University
Fossil fuel combustion to provide energy for the human population has induced climate change, leading to devastating global impacts. The best way to persuade a transition to renewable energy sources by fossil fuel giants is to deplete their operations' financing by divesting from fossil fuel shares.
Stellenbosch University, as a social exemplar in the academic community of South Africa, has a responsibility to ensure that its assets are sustainably managed and that the social license for ecological degradation by mass emitters is abolished.
This petition calls for the Investment Committee of Stellenbosch University to direct its asset managers to withdraw all of the university's endowment investments from every business, company, and enterprise operating in the fossil fuel industry, whether incorporated and / or operating nationally or internationally, and to redirect those funds to more sustainable investments.
Stellenbosch University, as a social exemplar in the academic community of South Africa, has a responsibility to ensure that its assets are sustainably managed and that the social license for ecological degradation by mass emitters is abolished.
This petition calls for the Investment Committee of Stellenbosch University to direct its asset managers to withdraw all of the university's endowment investments from every business, company, and enterprise operating in the fossil fuel industry, whether incorporated and / or operating nationally or internationally, and to redirect those funds to more sustainable investments.
Why is this important?
Climate change is a global crisis. Its implications will impact every global citizen, with the most disastrous consequences being felt by the impoverished. As stakeholders of Stellenbosch University, we as students must require the university's administration to invest in our future, and the future of our children, by divesting the university's endowment funds from fossil fuels and reinvesting them into sustainable funds. As members of the Stellenbosch community, we must ensure that the town's university - which has a substantial impact on Stellenbosch's development - administrates its funds sustainably, to ensure its long-term financial health. And as citizens of South Africa - a region threatened by extensive drought due to global warming - we must hold one of the wealthiest public universities in the country to account for funding climate change.