Divestment

Divestment is intentionally removing investments from a particular company, industry, or sector. For example, a company can divest from the fossil fuel industry and extractivism in favour of moving towards a regenerative economy. In the university context, this means selling the university’s stocks, bonds, and other forms of invested funds in a particular industry, and foregoing future investments in that industry - Divest Canada Coalition , adapted by Michelle Xie

Divestment as a campaign strategy aims to "apply economic pressure on an industry or state that is profiting from injustice and destruction. The idea is that stock sell-offs, cancelled contracts, and the like will scare off potential investors and create enough economic pressure to compel the target to comply with your demands. A divestment campaign helps to politically isolate the target and limit its ability to act with impunity." -Beautiful Trouble

Examples of divestment campaigns

Marginalized communities	In the Global North, MAPA often corresponds with low-income marginalized groups who bear the brunt of environmental impacts including unhealthy drinking water, harmful air quality, and close proximity to fossil fuel and toxic waste facilities. These communities are already experiencing the impacts of the climate crisis, and will continue to experience the worst of the effects. See environmental racism for more.
The Global South, i.e. Latin America	The impacts of the climate crisis have already become clear for people living in Latin America, as is the case for other countries in the Global South. Latin American countries generate less greenhouse gas than the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East, but are disproportionately suffering from droughts, hurricanes and seasonal shifts. Millions of people will be forced to migrate as the crisis worsens and Latin America becomes uninhabitable.  "Higher temperatures and heat waves [are] particularly deadly, especially if populations don't have the infrastructure in place to rely on air conditioning and other means to mitigate the impacts.” -Sarah Bermeo   "More than two thirds of the electricity consumed in Latin America comes from renewable energy resources, chiefly hydropower.” “As we're thinking about a post-fossil fuel world, as we think about the politics and economics that come from a transition from relying mainly on fossil fuels to moving to renewable energy resources, the area of the world that can show us the good, the bad and the ugly about what that might look like is Latin America.” -Christine Folch
The Global South, i.e. the Phillipenes	The Philippines contributes less than 0.4% to the climate crisis. The Philippines experiences an average of 20 typhoons and extreme storms per year, exasperated by the climate crisis. For example, climate-aggravated Typhoon Rai hit the Philippines in December 2021. Four hundred people were killed and over half a million people were displaced, in addition to 830,000 damaged homes and millions of dollars’ worth of crops, farmland and infrastructure damage.  The aftermath of these typhoons is devastating. “People wandered the streets with signs saying they were hungry and thirsty." “Many died of dehydration. Flooded cities have become ghost towns; houses have been buried by landslides.”-Arnel Murga Rising sea levels from global heating will submerge parts of the country, leading to thousands of climate refugees. Drought and flooding will hit agricultural production and destroy ecosystems. The risk and intensity of health emergencies, such as dengue and diarrhoea, will also increase.

Divestment became a popular strategy in the 1980s, when it was used to pressure the government of South Africa to abolish its racist policy and crime of apartheid.

The banks divestment movement calls for Canada's major banks to divest their investment portfolios from fossil fuels.

The pension divestment movement calls for pension plans, such as the The Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, to divest their investment portfolios from fossil fuels.

The student divestment movement calls for universities to divest their investment portfolios from fossil fuels.

Do divestment campaigns work?

Canadian universities that have committed to full or partial divestment include Laval University, Concordia University,, University of British Columbia, University of Guelph and the University of Montreal. 1000 other institutions globally have divested $14 trillion from the fossil fuel industry.

If one company withdrawns funding, won't another take their place?

• While the divestment movement alone may not solve the climate crisis, divestment is a part of the broader ecosystem of climate action. Divestment is considered a critical step in shifting how we run our society from principles of extraction to principles of generation.
• Divestment takes aim at the social license to operate of the fossil fuel industry, that is, the level of ongoing approval a community gives to the industry.
• Financial support is a key pillar that gives power to the fossil fuel industry. Loss of a partnership impacts their pillars of support by stigmatizing the fossil fuel industry. This propels the transition away from a fossil fuel-based economy to one fuelled by sustainable renewable energy.

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