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Greening of investments Canadian churches, universities push to divest fossil-fuel shares, regardless of companies’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions GARY PARK For Petroleum News
Activist factions within Canadian churches and universities are leading a drive to pressure their institutions to divest any shares they hold in the fossil fuel industry.
The latest move has been made by the United Church of Canada, one of Canada’s largest religions, whose general council has voted 67 percent to shift C$5.9 million from its fossil fuel portfolio into green renewable energy ventures.
The motion encourages a church foundation to drop its fossil fuel shares and asks the church’s pension board to determine if its holdings “align with the Christian imperative of seeking justice, resisting evil and living with respect in Creation.”
The directive applies to the top 200 fossil fuel firms in the world.
Christine Boyle, a Vancouver church member, said the church’s outreach programs work with people in countries such as the Philippines where it is claimed that human-induced climate change is contributing to poverty.
“The impacts of climate change are being felt most strongly right now by marginalized communities and many are communities we are working with to create more just systems,” she said.
Boyle argued there is a strong moral case against holding fossil fuel shares based on biblical references in Genesis that humans are entrusted to guard God’s creation.
No relation to emission reductions But Dave Pollard, a United Church clergyman in the City of Airdrie, on the northern outskirts of Calgary, opposed the motion because it made no concession to oil and natural gas companies that are working on technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and are more environmentally responsible.
“To make a blanket statement that we are going to divest may perhaps be punitive to those companies that are working hard and doing their level best to make themselves somewhat sustainable,” he said.
Pollard said he worries about the reaction he will face from petroleum industry workers in his congregation, adding “they have families and they have feelings and they have concerns about their livelihoods, especially now.”
Erik Mathieson, the United Church’s chief financial officer, said he will convene the church’s investment committee in September to identify possible investment options in the green energy sector.
“It is certainly doable (but) we will leave it to the investment professionals to evaluate risk and return,” he said, noting that there is no deadline to complete the process.
University endowment funds withdrawn Meanwhile, Queen’s University in Ontario has joined a movement among Canadian post-secondary institutions to withdraw university endowment funds from oil, natural gas and coal companies.
A university advisory committee has until the end of this year to recommend what action to take, based on a vote of one-third of students who gave 73.5 percent support to divestment without calling for any action against a number of major Queen’s facilities and programs that have been financed by alumni in the energy industry.
University of Chicago Professor Daniel Fischel issued a report this year that was based on two hypothetical portfolios and found that one which invested in fossil fuels in the 1965-2014 period returned 23 percent more than the non-fossil fuel stocks.
However, what the shift in investment strategies does reflect is a long-time, but relatively low-key practice of preferring to buy stocks, bonds or guaranteed investment certificates in companies that score well for their behavior in the community, the boardroom, the environment and in how they treat their employees.
RI hot trend What has been known as responsible investing or RI is quickly becoming a hot trend.
Patti Dolan, an adviser who specializes in RI with Raymond James in Calgary, told the Globe and Mail that “it’s the fastest growing area of my business. I don’t actually prospect (for clients) ... people call me.”
The Responsible Investment Association, drawn from investment companies, advisers, research firms and others, says retail and institutional assets that have a degree of RI scrutiny applied to them soared 68 percent to more than C$1 trillion in 2012-13, while RI mutual funds grew 52 percent.
Dolan believes interest in RI gained momentum after the financial crisis of 2008 left people disenchanted and angry over the behavior of large companies and their executives.
Now she is observing social media playing a role in making people aware of RI which has resulted in her being asked to speak on RI to a group of lawyers later this year.
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