Divestment – A Necessary Step Towards a Climate Neutral Society
By Guest Author: Austin Sachs, Director and founder of Protect and Divest
In most major social movements where there is an imbalance power, divestment has been a necessary part for progress, whether in South Africa or now in the environmental movement against fossil fuels. Yet, too often in the environmental movement, divestment is only pursued when all other options have run their course and failed. If we want a climate neutral society for generations to come, we must pursue divestment alongside all other actions – and alongside this divestment, a reinvestment into a society we want to see.
So where does this all start? Divestment begins with each of us looking into our financial accounts and seeing who we are funding with them. And that is exactly what Protect and Divest did last year. We researched the funding of the Atlantic Coast, Mountain Valley, Sabal Trail and Atlantic Sunrise pipelines to know where our money was going.
Along the entire East Coast, the TransCo Pipeline connects all these pipelines, but this infrastructure is also all connected by the same banks who are funding each and every single pipeline project. These banks range from the US banks of Wells Fargo, JP Morgan Chase, US Bank, CitiBank, and Bank of America to the International banks of the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC), Scotiabank and the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi UFJ. What we truly found is that no one bank is guilty alone – The entire financial industry is banking on the destruction of our beautiful home!
So where do we go if the banking industry is against a sustainable future? Well, luckily the entire industry is not against sustainability, and some heavily promote it. One of these options is Amalgamated Bank, who has promised to never invest depositor’s money into fossil fuels. Across this nation are countless credit unions doing the same for their members, who see money as a necessary tool of sustainability.
Protect and Divest has now launched our Divest the Commonwealth campaign to take our pledge one step further and move Virginia’s government funds out of fossil fuels, as well. Over $330 million dollars of the Virginia Retirement System is invested in fossil fuels. And of the stock of Duke Energy, one of the main builders of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, 10 state pensions plans hold over $785 million in it. If the banks are guilty, so are our government pensions and funds. And it’s not like there are no sustainable options. Blackrock, the FTSE Group, and the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) have come together to develop the FTSE ex-Fossil Fuels Index Series, a fossil fuel free index fund.
Divest the Commonwealth is working to build grassroots effort to move this money. We have started and are supporting city council resolutions from Harrisonburg, VA to Arlington, VA to Richmond, VA and are adding more weekly. Together, the cities and counties of Virginia will begin to bring about the future we want to see. Together, we will create a future we can be proud of.
Join us today and divest today! Every dollar, signature, and voice counts in making sure our money is where our mouth is. This is the way we create a world we want to live and one that we can tell our children about!
For more information visit: protectanddivest.weebly.com, or visit their Facebook page at: facebook.com/protectandivest.
Austin Sachs is the director and founder of Protect and Divest, created to build a market solution to climate change. Brought to the environmental movement by the Standing Rock crisis, Austin has worked endlessly to create a world we can all be proud within the economic and political models existing today!
