After years of pressure from activist groups, Harvard University, with the largest education endowment in the US totaling $42 billion, announced it would no longer make any direct investments in companies that explore or develop fossil fuels. The endowment’s private equity investments with fossil fuel holdings will be allowed to run off over time as the partnerships are liquidated. While the move was largely symbolic (the University had already been aggressively divesting from fossil fuels over in recent years), it was a formal acknowledgement that the process of decarbonatization underway throughout the world is an important consideration for fiduciaries with long-term investment horizons. Harvard’s move comes after similar actions taken by some of the world’s largest pension funds, including Norway’s and Japan’s sovereign wealth funds and pension funds for state employees in New York and California. A Bank for International Settlements report last year cited transition risks – the process of investors moving away from carbon-based assets – as one of the top sources of potential financial instability facing financial markets today.
