National Tertiary Education Divestment May Have Unexpected Benefits

The National Tertiary Education Union will divest from all of its fossil fuel stocks (BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Santos, Woodside and South 32) by the end of April 2016. They will also screen out companies which invest in tobacco, armaments, alcohol, uranium, animal testing, gambling and fossil fuels, or which breach human rights, labour or environmental standards. Instead, they will support companies involved in renewable energy, energy efficiency, mass public transport, sustainable agriculture and public housing. This is important because NTEU has annual revenues of more than $21 million to manage and has a position on the board of UniSuper, one of Australia's largest super funds, with more than 388,000 member accounts and $49.7 billion in net funds under management. Movement of NTEU's investments (and potentially those of UniSuper) will add to the global movement of divestment from fossil fuels, and support environmentally-friendly and ethical businesses. The latter are showing a tendency to do better financially anyway, whereas many fossil fuel investments have stalled or are going backwards and may become 'stranded assets'. Just as importantly, the NTEU's decision will add to the pressure on universities to engage in ethical and sustainable investment. Some universities, such as ANU and, to a lesser extent, Sydney University, are already going down the divestment from fossil fuels path, despite ANU copping a great deal of flak (which actually publicised the issue). However, our universities are lagging well behind rather than leading this fast-growing movement and 'the biggest debate of our time', apart from a small staff campaign calling for university leadership on fossil fuels.