In Pursuit of Climate Justice: How DivestUVic Won Fossil Fuel Divestment at the University of Victoria

This article was written by Teresa Lawson, and is the product of a collaboration between the HUB Librarian (Anglophone) and students in Jen Gobby's winter 2026 course "TCA425: Organizing for Transformative Change" at the University of Victoria. Many thanks to Teresa and Jen for their collaboration on this project.

Introduction

This article covers the DivestUVic Movement, a student-led fossil fuel divestment campaign that spanned 8 years of efforts to achieve full divestment at the University of Victoria in Victoria, BC, Canada.

Sources used:

• Public reports, social media posts, recordings, and press releases made by the campaign organizers
• Public documents, meeting minutes, statements, and press releases by the *University of Victoria
• News and media coverage
• Many reports by student newspaper The Martlet

What is the Fossil Fuel Divestment Movement?

Fossil fuel divestment refers to the removal of investment money held in stocks, bonds, and funds from oil, gas, and coal companies for moral, financial, and environmental reasons. Fossil fuel divestment is not the first time divestment has been used as a tool to affect change - it has previously been to target the tobacco and gambling industries and played an important role in the fight against apartheid in South Africa.

The arguments for fossil fuel divestment primarily fall into moral, factual, and financial categories:

Moral	Fossil fuel organizations are not concerned by the harms (current, past, or future) caused by their industry and are motivated almost entirely by short-term financial gain; as such they will continue to conduct business to satisfy this motivation even when even doing so is self-destructive.
Factual	Research shows that, to limit warming to a 2°C increase in global temperature, that 66% to 80% of fossil fuels need to remain in the ground.
Financial	If, and when, international climate action targets change are met, fossil fuel investments will be worthless and thus become ‘stranded assets’.

The purpose of fossil fuel divestment campaigns is to:

1. Reframe the business practice of fossil fuel companies socially unacceptable, undermining their legitimacy.
2. By undercutting legitimacy, undermine fossil fuel lobbying power therefore making space for politicians to take effective actions.
3. Highlight that the transition requirement is not an if, it is a when.
4. Emphasize that fossil fuel investments will not hold value once the transition occurs.

The Fossil Fuel Divestment movement is a global movement with action being taken by a huge range of people from grassroots University student clubs like DivestUVic to robust mutli-national watchgroups like the Climate Policy Initiative. Together, these groups seek to achieve progress towards divestment of fossil fuels and re-investment in renewable, sustainable alternatives.

Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaigns in Higher Education

The movement is traced back to student activism in 2011, was taken up by 350.org in 2012, and eventually found its way to the University of Victoria with the founding of Divest UVic in 2013., According to the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Commitments Database, there are over 260 educational institutions with divestment commitments, including 17 in Canada. Divestment in Canada began with Laval University's announcement in Feb 2017, followed by a steady series of announcements between 2017 and 2024. The University of Victoria was the 8th to announce divestment commitments, two years after both Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia released their own announcements.

What is the University of Victoria Foundation?

The University of Victoria Foundation is responsible for the management of the university’s Working Capital Investments, Pension Funds, and Student Investment Fund. As of March 2025, it is responsible for managing over $600 million in assets and administering over 1,500 endowment funds that disburse more than $20 million each year for scholarships, bursaries, and other university purposes.

DivestUVic requested that the Foundation's Board divest of all fossil fuels in all of these holdings, however University action has primarily been with regard to the Working Capital Investments.

Campaign breakdown

Summary

On February 4, 2014 the University of Victoria Student’s Society, on behalf of DivestUVic, submitted a letter to the university’s Board of Governors and the Foundation’s Board seeking divestment.

The letter included the problem, the goal, and the targets of their demands:

The Problem	The University of Victoria has $20.98 million invested in the fossil fuel industry. The University of Victoria is "committed to… promoting the development of a just and sustainable society through our programs of education and research and the stewardship of our own financial and physical resources.” These two facts contradict each other. “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate and peoples’ livelihoods, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage. The University of Victoria Students’ Society deeply regrets your deliberate willingness to invest in an industry quickly consigning our generation, and future generations, to life on an inhospitable planet.”
The Goal	For all current holdings to be divested of fossil fuels.
The Target	UVic Foundation investment policy. UVic Foundation investment holdings. UVic Foundation leadership. University leadership.
The Theory of Change	Assumptions: The University cares about its commitments to sustainability and social justice. The University cares about safeguarding its reputation. The University cares about responsible long-term financial planning. The University cares about the opinions of its students, faculty, and staff. The University cares about public opinion of the university. Strategies for Change: Pointing out contradictions in commitments versus action alongside threats of reputational harm will lead to (self-interested) policy change. Providing alternative investment pathways will empower the University to make positive change earlier, avoid stranded assets, and benefit from early positioning in changing markets. Leveraging public opinion will provide the social capital with which to make change and make inaction too socially costly to responsibly allow.

Key Actors

DivestUVic

DivestUVic was founded in 2013 as a group of University of Victoria students, faculty, and staff who advocate that “it is immoral and economically irresponsible to invest in the destruction of our climate, lands, and livelihoods.” In February 2014, the group demanded that the University of Victoria immediately cease any further investment in fossil fuel companies and divest all existing holdings within three years followed by ongoing formal requests for divestment.

The Vice President of Finance and Operations’ response deferred discussion of any action until the next Foundation Board meeting at which point the University explicitly refused to divest.

UVic Foundation Board

The UVic Foundation Board is responsible for protecting the value of the Foundation funds against inflation and providing stability in the earnings distribution to facilitate financial planning of the use of these funds. The Board is guided by the University of Victoria Foundation Act, Endowment Management or Spending Policy, Responsible Investment Policy, and investment objectives and guidelines.

UVic Board of Governors

The University of Victoria Board of Governors is responsible for the management, administration, and control of the property, revenue, business, and affairs of the university. It is a fifteen-member body who sit on committees, including the executive and governance committee, finance committee, operations and facilities committee, audit committee, and compensation and review committee.

Timeline

Was the Goal Achieved?

The movement’s stated demand was for the University of Victoria to cease all new investments in fossil fuels and for all current holdings to be divested of fossil fuels. This demand was made in February 2014 with initial success in January 2020 with the updated Responsible Investment Policy and a commitment to 45% divestment followed by major success in response to continued pressure for full divestment in February 2021. Full success was achieved, formally, in November 2021 after 7 years of ongoing efforts.

Success came about as a result of sustained pressure by student activists, an increasing number of peer institutions divesting, falling oil prices, shifting public and student opinion, and increasing reputational cost.

As of February 2026, the movement is now 12 years old and still actively involved in justice and solidarity work at the university. The movement’s goal, however, has expanded to become more intersectional in its climate and social justice demands. It now focuses on holding the university accountable to social, political, and environmental justice in UVic’s investments as of Feb 2026.

In the 2023/2024 UVic Foundation Investments Report (2023/24), there has been significant change in the nature and amounts invested in the reported categories with a clear shift away from fossil fuel investments., However, these investments have been moved into technology, industrial, and consumer discretionary industries such as Google, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. It is perhaps with great foresight and wisdom that DivestUvic has decided to shift its attention to include the social, political, and environmental aspects of the University’s investments, particularly given the extremely high profile nature of several of these new investments and their potential intersection with sociopolitical accountability.

Lessons for Future Organizing

In reflecting on the tactics, messaging, and outcomes of this movement, four primary lessons emerge:

Be Informed

• Determine who is responsible for enacting change for investment policy; who is ultimately responsible for how investments are handled? Direct your policy demands to them and communicate who supporters need to contact to express their support for your cause.
• Research the contextual background for those who are responsible for how investments are made - identify conflicts of interest, active participation in boards, groups, or businesses with a vested interest counter to the request and highlight those in your awareness building.
• Determine what other institutions and organizations are leading the way on the issue and learn from them.

Be in Community

• Connect with similar initiatives in your region for events, newsletters, and recruitment.
• Connect with fellow students, particularly law, finance, communications, climate science, and humanities students for support building compelling arguments.
• Centre intersectionality and solidarity, support and network with local social justice and climate justice movements to help spread the word, garner support, and keep perspective/accountability.

Be Inconvenient

• Be clever, creative, and inconvenient to those you are protesting against; this gets news coverage and stirs up questions.
• Demanding accountability and maintaining involvement in the follow-through as success is achieved solidifies that success.
• Satire, irony, and humour are powerful and connective forces; lean into it.

It's a Marathon Not a Sprint

• Student movements are vulnerable to the ebb and flow of semester cycles, graduation, and obligation - maintain a regular club or organizational schedule to maintain membership and organizing capacity.
• Refining the movement’s focus in response to changing needs can help avoid loss of momentum.
• It takes time to achieve change, maintaining pressure doesn’t have to sit with one cohort alone - it is a collective effort over months or years.

Key Quotes

• “If it’s wrong to wreck the climate and peoples’ livelihoods, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage” - Kelsey Mech, DivestUVic
• “Between 2024 and 2030, an annual average of at least USD 6.3 trillion in global climate finance is needed to keep global warming within 1.5°C (CPI, 2025). Achieving this—and capturing the economic and environmental benefits that result from it—will require financial institutions (FIs) to play a key role as enablers, alongside other actors including governments and real-economy companies… Action from [Financial Institutions] is vital to the climate transition in the global economy, composed of interlocking sectors and national economies….Near-term backsliding will not change the ultimate need for transition.” - Le et al, Climate Policy Initiative
• “UVic lost $4 million on their Canadian fossil fuel investments between March 2018 and March 2019. Even before COVID-19, UVic’s fossil energy investments were delivering a -17% rate of return (RoR). In contrast, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s fossil free index had a +7.9% RoR that same year. The fossil energy sector was the worst performing segment of the stock market in 2018-19.” - Rowe et al
• “Both the Board of Governors and the Foundation Board have duties of loyalty and prudence when making investment decisions… Neither Board is prevented from adopting a divestment policy to reduce their exposure to material financial risks from climate change, provided that policy is financially prudent.” - Vancity, Ecojustice