A little flurry of stories of divestment and public distancing has caught my eye in recent days.
Glasgow University has announced that it is to sell off all the parts of its £128 million endowment that are invested in fossil-fuel-related businesses. Other universities are expected to follow suit. Meanwhile Lego has announced that it is to end its association with Shell, following a campaign by Greenpeace.
I'm not sure whether this is anything more than a meaningless gesture, but the university campaign is nevertheless quite interesting. If the universities are shifting their investments away from fossil fuels into presumably lower-yielding green assets, what is the knock-on effect on their ability to deliver research and education? Presumably there will be less money to spend on facilities across the board and so future students and academics will bear the brunt of the impact. Unless of course the university lobbying machine persuades the government that they are underfunded, in which case you and I end up paying for academia's gesture. Either way, the current inhabitants of the ivory tower are probably largely unaffected.
One also wonders if Glasgow University's pension fund has excluded fossil fuel assets from its portfolio or whether that would bring the pain a little too close to home for the academics. Mind you, if they did, it would simply be raised as another reason for the taxpayer to open his wallet.