John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels.
The family whose legendary wealth flowed from Standard Oil is planning to announce on Monday that its $860 million philanthropic organization, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, is joining the divestment movement that began a couple years ago on college campuses.
The announcement, timed to precede Tuesday’s opening of the United Nations climate change summit meeting in New York City, is part of a broader and accelerating initiative.
UPDATE: Message from Nobel Prize winner Archbishop Desmond Tutu
Times continued:
“This is a threshold moment,” said Ellen Dorsey, executive director of the Wallace Global Fund, which has coordinated the effort to recruit foundations to the cause. “This movement has gone from a small activist band quickly into the mainstream.”
Not everyone will divest completely or right away, Ms. Dorsey noted, and some are divesting just from specific sectors of the fossil fuel industry, such as coal.
“The key thing is that they are moving along toward a common destination,” she said.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for an anti-apartheid-style boycott and disinvestment campaign against the fossil fuel industry for driving global warming, just days ahead of a landmark UN report on how carbon emissions can be slashed.
In an article for the Guardian, the archbishop writes: “We live in a world dominated by greed. We have allowed the interests of capital to outweigh the interests of human beings and our Earth. It is clear [the companies] are not simply going to give up; they stand to make too much money.”
Tutu, one of the most revered figures of South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle and a key backer of the economic and moral campaigns that helped end the system, says: “People of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change. We can, for instance, boycott events, sports teams and media programming sponsored by fossil-fuel energy companies.”
The Nobel peace prize winner also called for investors to dump their fossil fuel stocks: “It makes no sense to invest in companies that undermine our future. Already some colleges and pension funds have declared that they want their investments congruent with their beliefs.”
“There is a moral imperative to preserve a healthy planet,” said Valerie Rockefeller Wayne, a great-great-granddaughter of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller Sr. and a trustee of the largest charitable foundation in which the family still plays the leading role.
I guess we should be thankful for any steps in the right direction, but the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (big as it is) is only a small part of the Rockefeller fortune and is participated in by only some of the large number of John D’s descendants. It is virtually impossible to really trace where all the money is and what it’s invested in. The Rockefellers assocaited with this Fund have said this divestiture is “symbolic” and symbols are good things, but I would like to see some real $$$$ figures before I cheer too loudly.
This is interesting as a symbolic act, but the actual statement is vague at best:
http://www.rbf.org/content/divestment-statement
They’ll reduce their investment in coal and the tar sands to less than 1% of their portfolio by the end of this calendar year. The time frame suggests they were largely already divested in these sources. The remaining fossil carbon investments will require analysis:
“As we take the steps to divest from coal and tar sands investments, we are also undertaking a comprehensive analysis of our exposure to any remaining fossil fuel investments and will work with the RBF Investment Committee and board of trustees to determine an appropriate strategy for further divestment over the next few years.”
I’d also be curious if the commitment extends to gasoline car manufacturing, international shipping, plastics manufacturing, fertilizer production, and so on. I know my comments belittle the “invest-divest” strategy a bit, but there’s going to be a LOT of greenwashing and marketing tied to it.
Yep, “vague at best” is well put, although you can read between the lines more easily on some of it. Greenwashing, marketing, and PR are definitely evident, especially in the last one below:
“…Given the structure of some commingled investment funds and investments in highly diversified energy companies, we recognize there may continue to be minimal investments in our portfolio in those energy sectors…” (tar sands and coal)
“…will work to determine an appropriate strategy for further divestment over the next few years…” (how many are a “few”?)
“….while maintaining the purchasing power of the endowment, so that future generations will also benefit from the foundation’s charitable giving. In uncertain and volatile markets, these financial goals are not easy to achieve. Therefore, our divestment from fossil fuels, which is now underway, will be accomplished through a careful process of evaluating our exposure and a phased approach that proceeds as quickly as is prudent”. (careful, phased, and prudent?)