Welcome to the Divest Bryn Mawr website!

At their class meeting during the 2015 Reunion Weekend the Class of 1965 unanimously supported the following resolution proposed by Harriet Martin and seconded by Maxine Long:

“The class of 1965 asks the Alumnae Association’s Executive Branch to consider at its autumn 2015 meeting requesting the Bryn Mawr Board of Trustees’s Investment Policy Subcommittee to divest from coal and tar sands following the examples of Stanford University and Oxford University. The Class of 1965 welcomes the Board of Trustees’ Investment Policy Subcommittee recent commitment to evaluate ways for the college to do more as an environmentally conscious investor. “

Follow the progress of our campaign through December 2015

Update on Our 2015 Divestment Petition

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One phone conversation and numerous emails later, little progress has been made changing trustees’ position since our petition in 2015 and the BMC student campaign in 2012-13.

In the public arena there have been two particularly interesting developments which are very relevant to Bryn Mawr divesting from all fossil fuels however.

Comparison of Bryn Mawr College’s Endowment Fund and the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund

First, the value of the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund closely mirrored that of the BMC endowment fund between 2014 and 2019. They differed radically in their approach to investing in fossil fuels over this period, however. The RBF reduced its coal and tar sand investments from 1.6% to 0 .05% and its total fossil fuel investments from 6.6% to 1%.  As part of their divestment efforts, the RBF has posted information on how they have achieved divestment to date.

Over the same years Bryn Mawr continued to invest with no attempt to move away from fossil fuels: it has said its coal and tar sands investments are minimal (about 1%) but has claimed it is impossible to estimate the size of its oil and gas investments.  This conservative investment policy does not appear to have strengthened the BMC endowment fund’s performance compared to RBF’s:

Comparison graph

Comments on the merits of divestment made by MD of Cambridge Associates

Second, the Managing Director of Cambridge Associates’ (advisers to BMC on investments[1]), announced in August 2019: “If you’re just looking from a pure investment standpoint, you will find more profits in the growth potential of renewables and alternatives [than fossil fuels]. It’s been a great time to be divested, frankly.”

Bryn Mawr’s other actions on climate change

Mary Clark has assured us that “As I noted in our earlier communication in 2015, the primary purpose of the College’s endowment is to support the educational mission of the College.  Our coal and tar sands holdings continue to be negligible, as in 2015 and the College continues to make progress on its sustainability goals, including substantial investments in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency measures.  The College obtains its electricity entirely from renewable energy sources, specifically from wind-generated power.  In addition, the College has been actively replacing the roofs and other masonry on our buildings in order to reduce our energy consumption.  The College is in the process of planning for continued progress with regard to environmental sustainability, and we welcome any thoughts you might have on that.”

“Negligible” holdings in coal or tar sands are likely to be in the region of 1% of the 2019 BMC endowment fund, in other words, c. $8,880,000.  That sum invested in coal would have annual CO2 emissions of well over 76,000 MT CO2, at least seven times the college’s own direct emissions. The collage has not published the extent of its holdings in gas and oil.

What next?

Much as it disappoints me, I have no plans to fly across the Atlantic to attend our 55th reunion.  I live in England and now, whenever possible, limit my traveling to walking, buses and trains.  I will, however, be writing again to trustees and strongly urge you all to do the same.   I will urge they invest in renewables and to work toward zero investment in fossil fuels as quickly as possible.  I will draw their attention to the RBF data which show us this need not mean a smaller return on our investments and gives pointers on how to proceed.

The young women of the future deserve a quality education, but it will benefit them little without a stable climate.

Responding to “Protecting the Planet” (Alumnae Bulletin, Jan 2015)

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It was a pleasure to see an Alumnae Bulletin dedicated to “Protecting the Planet” with its focus on the 2015 Paris accord. The “What you can do” tips are excellent. There is, however, one major omission from this list: divestment. Do not invest in the fossil fuel industry. Divest if you have.

To my surprise, I discovered that all of Bryn Mawr’s efforts to reduce its CO2 emissions are made totally insignificant if they have as little as 1% of their endowment fund invested in coal.  Bryn Mawr’s endowment fund at the close of May 2014 held $867,728,0001. Bryn Mawr’s gross “carbon footprint” (CO2 emissions) for 2014 was 15,950 MT. Offsetting by composting and buying wind generated electricity reduced emissions to a net figure of 10,620 MT2. Had 1% of the endowment fund been invested in an enterprise like the Australian Carmichael Coal Mine, it would have been responsible for the release of about 76,360 MT CO2 into the atmosphere. A “negligible” 1% of our endowment fund invested in coal is capable of releasing almost five times the annual GROSS carbon footprint of the College; 1% of our endowment fund invested in coal would release over seven times the annual NET carbon footprint of the College. (See the bottom of this post for the figures and calculations on which these figures are based.)

Divestment from fossil fuels is surely essential if the world is to slow the advance of climate change. Divestment is essential for all of us, including Bryn Mawr.

An expatriate living in the UK, I had managed eight flightless (and veggie) years, before flying to the U.S.A. in 2015 for a five-week visit to include my 50th BMC reunion. At Bryn Mawr, I joined with several classmates to urge our alma mater to divest. The Class of 1965 voted unanimously to ask the Alumnae Association to discuss divestment. It declined, saying the Trustees would be discussing it.

I also circulated a petition that was signed by 135 alumnae (classes ranging from 1950 to 2010). The petition asked our trustees to commit to divesting our endowment fund of almost one billion dollars from coal and tar sands. This was deliberately a smaller ask than the complete divestment requested by students and rejected by trustees in 2013.

Responding to our petition, Ann Logan ’76 (chair of Bryn Mawr Colleges Board of Trustees) and Mary Clark ’87 (chair of the Trustees’ Committee on Investment Responsibility) spoke with me for an hour by telephone in November 2015. Amongst other points, they made clear in our conversation and in a follow-up letter that they understand Bryn Mawr’s investment in coal and tar sands to be “negligible” (“no more than 1%”). They said investments are in “comingled” funds; there are no direct investments in coal or tar sands stocks or shares. They also noted that Bryn Mawr is a totally “passive investor”; i.e., professional investment managers make all decisions on investments and do this solely on the basis of monetary return.

On the positive side, they pointed out the College has invested in sustainability on campus; it has now achieved a 10% reduction in energy use. Offsetting reduces the gross emission figures another 33%. We are told the College has made “substantial investments” in renewable energy. It was these figures that started me wondering, researching on the web, and finally calculating how 1% of the BMC endowment fund invested on coal might compare with the annual emissions of the College itself.

The aim of divestment is to bankrupt fossil fuel companies morally, not financially. That being said, fossil fuel companies are still hugely overvalued; the world can afford to burn only 20% of the currently known coal and oil deposits without making irreversible and catastrophic climate change a reality. Fossil fuels will be stranded assets. Divestment is therefore a financial as well as a moral imperative.

Two years ago Jim Yong Kim, president of the World Bank Group, advised, “Use smart due diligence. Rethink what fiduciary responsibility means in this changing world. It’s simple self-interest. Every company, investor, and bank that screens new and existing investments for climate risk is simply being pragmatic.”3 Already over the last few years, sustainable energy stocks have outperformed fossil fuel investments. We need to let our money speak. To have any chance of a stable climate we need to stop pouring more and more money into the companies whose business it is to find and mine fossil fuels. We need to ensure that investment capital available to us, or to any organization of which we are a part, is invested in sustainable “green” energy sources, not fossil fuels. It is surely morally indefensible to invest in, and profit from, the destruction of our planet’s ecosystem.

Notes:

  1. Figure provided to the Alumnae News’ editors by Bryn Mawr’s Chief Financial Officer.
  2. Figure provided to the Alumnae News’ editors by Bryn Mawr’s Facilities Director.
  3. Remarks made at a press conference at the Davos World Economic Forum 2014.

 

Calculating the Effect on CO2 Emissions of investing 1% of BMC’s Endowment Fund in Coal

(The letters in parentheses indicate how the figure in the right hand column was calculated.)

A $ required for investment in Carmichael Mine, Australia $16,500,000,000
B Annual coal production in metric tonnes predicted from Carmichael Mine 60,000,000 MT coal
C Metric tonnes CO2 produced by burning 1 tonne coal 2.42 MT CO2
D Metric tonnes CO2 from Carmichael’s 60,000,000 T annual coal production (BxC) 145,140,000 MT CO2
E Investment cost of mining 1 metric tonne coal annually (A/B) $275
F Metric tonnes CO2 generated annually by investing $1 (D/E) 0.0088 MT CO2
G 1% of BMC’s 2015 endowment fund of $867,728,000 (fund/100) $8,677,280
H Metric Tons CO2 generated annually by an investment $8,677,280 in coal (FxG) 76,360 MT CO2
I BMC’s 2014 CO2e emissions from direct and indirect use of fossil fuels 15,950 MT CO2
(Net emissions reflecting credits for composting and renewable energy) (10,616)
J The potential CO2 emissions resulting from investing 1% of the BMC 2014 endowment fund in coal mining (H/I) are almost 5 times larger than the whole of Bryn Mawr College’s 2014 CO2 emissions. 4.8
(They would be 7.2 times larger than Bryn Mawr’s 2014 net emission.) (7.2)

 

CO2 from investing 1% of the BMC 2014 endowment fund in coal is potentially 5 times all BMC’s 2014 emissions

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Because the development of the Carmichael Mine in Australia has been much in the news recently, it is possible to calculate the cost per tonne of coal in investment dollars.  Our calculations use this figure plus the CO2 emissions of one tonne of coal, the size of the 2014 BMC endowment fund and finally the tonnes of CO2 emitted by BMC itself in 2014 to conclude that as little as 1% of our endowment fund invested in coal could result in emissions five times greater than the total annual emissions of Bryn Mawr College.

Next Steps

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To Bryn Mawr Alumnae:
Following Paris there is a very strong case for widening our divestment campaign to all fossil fuels. In this we would be following the example set by the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund under the guidance of Stephen Heintz. This fund is only slightly smaller than Bryn Mawr’s endowment fund and, like it, has been quite tied up in comingled and hedge funds.

It would be helpful to know if you feel we should
1. Petition Bryn Mawr trustees next to ask Cambridge Associates to help us divest from coal and tar sands (holdings in comingled funds may be c. 1% (c. $10,000,000) of our endowment fund)
or
2. Press now for complete fossil fuel divestment?

Considered Response to Trustees

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In December Harriet Martin sent a response to Mary Clark’s letter of Nov 10th.  In it she celebrates the progress made in Paris towards a low-carbon, sustainable planet and draws the Trustees’ attention to the advice available from Cambridge Associates on divestment paths and also to Stephen Heintz’s experience in working towards the divestment of the Rockefeller Brothers’ Fund, an endowment fund similar to Bryn Mawr’s in size and investments.