page_title: Fossil fuel divestment
section_title: Fossil Free ANU
hierarchical_section_title: Fossil fuel divestment / Groups involved in divestment campaigns / Fossil Free ANU
caption_attribution_description: English: In September 2014, more than 82% of ANU students voted for divestment
context_page_description: Fossil fuel divestment or fossil fuel divestment and investment in climate solutions is an attempt to reduce climate change by exerting social, political, and economic pressure for the institutional divestment of assets including stocks, bonds, and other financial instruments connected to companies involved in extracting fossil fuels. Fossil fuel divestment campaigns emerged on campuses in the United States in 2010 with students urging their administrations to turn endowment investments in the fossil fuel industry into investments in clean energy and communities most impacted by climate change. By 2015, fossil fuel divestment was reportedly the fastest growing divestment movement in history. In April 2020, a total of 1,192 institutions and over 58,000 individuals representing $14 trillion in assets worldwide had begun or committed to a divestment from fossil fuels.
context_section_description: The divestment campaign at the Australian National University is one of the longest running in the world and, while it has not yet achieved full fossil fuel divestment, it has had substantial wins, most notably in 2011 and 2014.
  Fossil Free ANU formed out of the ANU Environment Collective (EC), a consensus-based and non-hierarchical group of students affiliated with the Australian Student Environment Network, when students were notified in 2011 by campaigners at the Northern Rivers, NSW that ANU was the 12th largest shareholders in the coal seam gas company Metgasco. Following student protests, including an event called 'ANU Gets Fracked' that saw students erect a mock gas rig in Union Court, the ANU Council announced in October 2013 that it would divest from Metgasco, citing student concerns and the fact that the Australian Ethical Investment did not approve of them. Tom Stayner, an activist from the EC, stated in the ANU student paper Woroni that: "He took some convincing, but the Vice Chancellor is showing leadership on this urgent issue."
  However, student concerns were again raised in 2012 when it was revealed that the ANU had only reduced its holding in Metgasco from over 4 million shares in 2011 to 2.5 million in 2012. In 2013, Tom Swann filed a FOI request to the ANU requesting all "documents created during 2012, which refer to the University's purchase, sale or ownership of shares in any company which generates revenue from oil, coal, gas, or uranium." These documents revealed that ANU had substantial holdings in major fossil fuel companies and had been buying shares in Santos while selling shares in Metgasco. Students lobbying and public pressure led the ANU Council to implement a Socially Responsible Investment Policy (SRI) in late 2013 modelled on Stanford University, which aims to "avoid investment opportunities considered to be likely to cause substantial social injury."
  
  In 2014, students from Fossil Free ANU organised the first student-initiated referendum at the ANU and in elections in September more than 82 per cent of students voted in favour of the ANU divesting from fossil fuels in what was the highest turnout in a student election at the university in more than a decade. In October 2014, the ANU Council announced that it would divest from seven companies, two of which, Santos and Oil Search, performed poorly in an independent review undertaken by the Centre for Australian Ethical Research. This decision provoked a month-long controversy with the Australian Financial Review publishing over 53 stories criticising the decision including 12 front pages attacking the ANU, with its editor-in-chief, Michael Stutchbury, prouncing the decision to be as "disingenuous" as banning the burqa. These attacks, which The Canberra Times editorial described as "verging on hysterical" was joined by members of the cabinet of the Abbott Government, with the Treasurer Joe Hockey stating that the ANU Council is "removed from the reality of what is helping to drive the Australian economy and create more employment," Education Minister Christopher Pyne calling it "bizarre" and Prime Minister Tony Abbott calling it "stupid." In response, Louis Klee, an activist from Fossil Free ANU, wrote in The Age that the reaction demonstrated not just "the complicity of state power with the mining industry," but also: 
  [...] that the citizens of this country are powerful voices in the debate over climate justice. It demonstrates that they are, ultimately, voices speaking with growing eloquence, urgency and authority for one thing: action to address global climate change.
  
  Vice-Chancellor of ANU Ian Young stood by the decision, stating: 
  On divestment, it is clear we were in the right and played a truly national and international leadership role. ... [W]e seem to have played a major role in a movement which now seems unstoppable.
  Meeting with students in the wake of the furore of the decision, Ian Young told activists from Fossil Free ANU that while he initially thought divestment was "a sideshow," the reaction of the mining companies revea
caption: In October 2014, more than 82% of ANU students voted for full fossil fuel divestment
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