Green Mountain College today announced that it is divesting its $3.1 million endowment from fossil fuel companies, making the Poultney liberal arts school the fifth college in the nation — and the second in Vermont, after Sterling College — to endorse a campaign playing out on more than 300 campuses across the country. 

The goal isn’t necessarily to hit companies like Mobil, Exxon and Royal Dutch Shell in the pocketbook; most divestment advocates agree that even the wealthiest universities won’t make much of a ding in these corporation’s profits by divesting. 

“I don’t think financially we can cripple them. They’re so big and so rich,” Vermont resident and environmental activist Bill McKibben told Seven Days in December, as the divestment campaign was gaining steam. Rather, McKibben said divestment represents an “inherently moral call, saying if it’s wrong to wreck the climate, it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”

GMC’s board of trustees voted on Friday to immediately divest from the top 200 fossil fuel companies targeted in the nationwide divestment campaign headed up by the environmental activism organization founded by McKibben, 350.org. Currently 1 percent of GMC’s endowment is tied up in these companies, which collectively own the vast majority of the world’s coal, oil and gas reserves.

“We see this as another step in an ongoing effort to connect our investment decisions with our ideals,” said GMC president Paul Fonteyn in a statement released today. “Investing endowment funds on the basis of social, economic and environmental criteria is one of the ways Green Mountain College expresses its values.”

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Kathryn Flagg was a Seven Days staff writer from 2012 through 2015. She completed a fellowship in environmental journalism at Middlebury College, and her work has also appeared in the Addison County Independent, Wyoming Public Radio and Orion Magazine.

10 replies on “Green Mountain College Joins Growing Divestment Movement”

  1. “”We see this as another step in an ongoing effort to connect our investment decisions with our ideals,” said GMC president Paul Fonteyn in a statement released today.”
    Message to college president: “Ideals” don’t make money. Good investments make money. Your institution needs money. College tuition is already obscenely expensive, and now you’re going to make it more expensive by reducing your investment income? Do your “ideals” include making college even less affordable? Available only to wealthy students? Stop the politically correct nonsense already.

  2. Mckibben’s 350.org is funded primarily by the oil-derived money from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund and they have refused to divest. Worse, McKibben refuses to demand that they divest (do as he says, not as he does). Instead, he cashes his oil-derived checks and agrees to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund’s oath: First, do no harm to the Democratic Party.
    There’s a term for this. And it’s called “activist malpractice.”

  3. “Mobil, Exxon, and Royal Dutch Shell…”
    Exxon Mobil is one company, merged many years ago.

  4. At Middlebury you have a big piece of the next generation of the wealthiest, most powerful families on the planet. Good luck convincing them to give up the reins of power. Good luck trying to get birds to give up flying.

  5. Middlebury’s students are pressuring the College’s leadership to divest from fossil fuel & fracking companies. For the President & Board of Directors to be convinced, though, it will take more than the students’ pressure. Their parents and influential alumni might help make the case.

  6. In response to comments from Mr. Chevrier:
    I agree about the need for alumni pressure. I’m a Middlebury alum, and my speech at Friday’s pro-divestment rally can be found on Vt Digger at http://bit.ly/16y2VoL.
    Regarding Mr. Colby’s comment, it’s certainly true that historically, earlier generations of the Rockefellers made their money in oil. It’s my understanding that the Rockefeller fund is now looking to divest. And it’s inaccurate to say 350.org gets most of its money from this fund (which itself is greatly diversified and not concentrated in oil). Thousands of individuals such as myself have contributed and volunteer for 350.org, and its funding base is quite broad.

  7. It’s inaccurate to say divestment will necessarily cost a college money. Studies on this issue have concluded divestment can be revenue neutral. It’s not necessary to invest in fossil fuel companies to get a good return. In fact, some economists now worry about the investment and financial prospects of fossil fuel companies. See this from the conservative Economist magazine on “unburnable carbon”: http://econ.st/16gNUYY

  8. Oh come on; that’s a huge stretch. First of all, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is nonpartisan – it’s a 501(c)(3) charitable organization – with no “oath … to the Democratic Party”. Secondly, it’s funded from various sources – primarily from Rockefeller family money, which yes, a lot of it came from oil in the early 1900s, but if you’re stretching that far, then ALL money is tainted.

  9. Except that the parents and alumni think with their brains, and a majority will not pressure the school for such divestment.

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