When will Uni Freiburg become genuinely “Fossil Free”?
The local divestment group of Freiburg just held a flash event, demanding the university to complete its path towards a genuine “fossil free” campus
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On the afternoon of 27th of June, a large banner reading “The First Step towards Divestment Uni Freiburg Says ‘dunno’ to Oil, Coal, and Gas” was dropped on the principal’s office by a local divestment group, until the caretaker of the schoolmaster’s building forced the group to leave.
Founded in Autumn 2014, Fossil Free Freiburg has been operating for nearly four years and has been continuing its divestment initiative. As the city announced to divest from any fossil fuel this March, the group now focuses on local Church and University divestment.
In August 2016, the school announced its adoption of a financial principle to not directly invest on fossil fuel industries. However, the group considered this too weak a criteria when compared to other divestment rules such as the one in Bremen. For example, the current rule of Uni Freiburg does not deal with portfolio investments.
Since then, Fossil Free Freiburg has been turned down several times when it proposed a further divestment criteria. A cognitive gap occurs currently since from the school’s perspective the university is already fossil free.
Such view was held whenever the school representatives were asked about this topic. The latest example was during a podium discussion event in the Sustainable Campus week (from 11 June to 15 June), when members of Fossil Free Freiburg, among other campus sustainable groups, sat side by side with representatives from the university to discuss sustainable issues on campus.
On 19th of June, the university elected a new senate a new student council. Along with the action, Fossil Free Freiburg wrote a public letter to the new Senate to ask for their support of revising the investment criteria, and also improve the transparency of the investment status.
When will Uni Freiburg become genuinely “Fossil Free”? This is a story still unfolding. The demand for a more democratic and just discussion of the management of campus finance is growing everywhere around the world, and students are reshaping their relationships with the university through these actions.
