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ISSUE 764 11 DEC 2024 exepose.com @exepose
THE UNIVERSITY OF EXETER’S INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1987 Image:FMT
University of Exeter invests £800,000 in major global plastics polluter In conversation: Lord Mayor of Exeter
Amy Rushton Editor-in-Chief
Page 6
Callum Martin Online Editor-in-Chief
In conversation: Oddballs Foundation Page 16
EXCLUSIVE THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS CONTENT RELATING TO RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT WHICH SOME READERS MAY FIND DISTRESSING
I Mulilingual Article: German Christmas Markets Page 27
Images (top to bottom): Paulina Majewska, Dunk, Flcikr Santa hat: Crazilla
N what appears to be a clear breach of its ethical investment policy, Exeter University invests over £800,000 in Unilever PLC, one of the world’s biggest producers of plastic pollution. A Freedom of Information (FOI) request filed by Exeposé has found that £801,026 of the University’s endowment fund is invested in Unilever, with the initial stake purchased in May 2019. The conglomerate, which owns dozens of consumer goods companies, produced more than 4.1 million tonnes of plastic packaging between 2017 and 2022, just 0.2 per cent of which was recyclable. Break Free From Plastic’s annual audits, which rank corporations by their global plastic pollution, have without fail named Unilever in the top five offenders, last year ranking it in the top three. Unilever is notorious for its use of non-recyclable plastic sachets, an “environmental scourge” that has a particularly damaging effect on the Global South. In the 2010s, Unilever produced over 475 billion of these sachets, which
even the company’s CEO has condemned as environmentally damaging. A United Nations working group has also expressed ‘deep concern’, over the company’s handling of a 2007 attack on one of its Kenyan plantations, which saw seven people killed and more than 50 women raped. Following the attack, Unilever stopped paying the wages of the surviving workers for six months, and the remediation it was later obliged to pay has been widely condemned as inadequate and an ‘injustice’. Unilever has repeatedly reneged on its promises — including backtracking on environmental targets and its pledge to pay direct suppliers a living wage by 2030. Exeter University’s ethical investment policy commits to only investing “in entities that exhibit best class standards of behaviour and performance in a broad range of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues.” Under the ‘E’ of ‘ESG’, the University lists factors including pollution and sustainability; under the ‘S’ it lists factors including human rights and employee relations. Just recently, the University announced that it had been awarded the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Environmental Leadership’ Award at the Times Higher Education Awards. This is not the first University investment that has sparked environmental controversy: Last year saw students protest against the University’s continued investment in Shell, another of the world’s major corporate polluters. The University’s investment in Unilever comes from its endowment fund, which
on a day to day basis is managed by Rathbone Greenbank. The University told Exeposé that “investment managers are empowered to make the investment decisions as long as they are in line with the [ethical] policy.” When Exeposé put it to the University that this investment seemingly stands in contravention with its ‘best in class’ ESG approach, a spokesperson said “The University of Exeter is committed to ensuring any investment decisions are made responsibly and with the utmost integrity. As part of this commitment, and following feedback from colleagues and students in support of the climate and environment emergency, the University stopped any direct investments in fossil fuel companies. We also appointed Rathbone Greenbank to manage our investment portfolio, with a major factor in our decision being our drive to improve our ethical investments. “The University’s investment policy continues to be to only invest in companies that demonstrate the highest standards of environmental and social behaviour. The policy also requires Rathbone Greenbank to engage with companies to influence and hold companies to account for their environmental and social impact. The presidents of our Students Unions are part of the group which holds Rathbone Greenbank to account on how they are performing and engaging” In their FOI response, the University also said that it “requires Rathbone to engage with companies to influence and hold companies to account for their environmental and social impact.”
But given that Unilever has a market cap of over £116 billion, it is unclear how the University proposes that they can “influence” corporate policy. A Student’s Guild spokesperson said “we are committed to sustainability and transparency. Concerns about the University’s investment in Unilever, identified as a major global polluter, raise important questions about aligning financial decisions with our community’s values. “We encourage the University to provide greater transparency on how its sustainability commitments are being upheld. The Guild remains dedicated to supporting students in advocating for a sustainable and inclusive future.” They further added “All decisions made by the University must reflect the values of its students, including how it uses its money. In the past, we’ve supported student-led activism through campaigns like Shell Out, where we provided survey data, protest support and resources to help students challenge the University’s acceptance of payments from Shell. “Alex Martin, Guild President, is working closely with the University through the Treasury and Investment Group to ensure investments reflect our shared principles. In Term 2 he will co-lead a Partnerships Principles session to develop practical tools and strategies for more ethical decision-making around what institutions the University works with. Through this work and more, we seek to make University finances more transparent and shaped by students.”