University of Nottingham Divests from Fossil Fuels

 Students at a local university have been celebrating after a three-year campaign resulted in the University of Nottingham agreeing to divest from fossil fuels. The move represents an impressive turnaround as the university was a member of a coal industry lobby group until as recently as March. University of Nottingham People and Planet Group, a student-led group, had collected more than thousand petition signatures calling on the university to divest. Jane Meehan, Campaign Chair of University of Nottingham People and Planet said: 'The University of Nottingham are showing that universities can quickly remove fossil fuels from their portfolio.The social license of fossil fuel companies is vanishing.'
 
In a press release announcing the decision, the University said that about 6% of their £50 million endowment fund was invested in fossil fuels and that coal and tar sand holdings would be immediately disposed of. The statement promised that all other fossil fuels would be removed from their portfolio within the next 12 months. The announcement means that Nottingham joins a quickly growing list of UK universities that have committed to drop their fossil fuel investments.