AMHERST — Less than 1 percent of the University of Massachusetts’ $770 million endowment remains invested in fossil fuels, after the fund’s managers pulled out of coal industry investments last year in response to a 2015 petition from student protesters.
Endowment representatives had declined earlier this week to reveal how much of the endowment was in invested in fossil fuels, as protesters continued their week-long sit-in to demand divestment.
But in an interview Friday, Victor Woolridge, chairman of the UMass board of trustees and a voting member of the foundation managing the endowment, said the remaining investment totals less than $5 million — six-tenths of 1 percent of the total.
Woolridge also offered a different perspective on whether protesters need to file a fresh petition to prompt reconsideration of fossil fuel investments by the foundation, as a foundation spokesman had suggested. Raymond Howell, of Howell Communications in Boston, said Thursday that “no new petition has been filed by the UMass Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign.”
But student protesters say they do not need to. They are simply seeking full action on a request contained in a petition more than a year ago, they say.
“Our ask has remained the same for three years,” said Kristie Herman, a spokeswoman for UMass Divest. “Our formal petition called for full divestment from the top 200 publicly traded fossil fuel companies and was submitted in March of 2015.”
That petition prompted the UMass Foundation to make an announcement in December that all investments in coal would be removed from its investment portfolio, after extensive input from the Socially Responsible Investing Advisory Committee made up of faculty, administrators, alumni and students.
“From the board’s perspective, we thought it was a settled matter,” Woolridge said.
Mica Reel, another spokeswoman for Divest UMass, said the petition requesting divestment of all fossil fuels was not divided between coal and other forms of fossil fuels.
“We went through the institutional channels they asked us to go through,” Reel said. “They still have our proposal.”
Woolridge said he and other trustees worked closely with the Divest UMass group to inform student leaders that their demand for complete fossil fuel divestment was not possible, in part because of how this might affect the $770 million endowment.
“The impacts on current and prospective contributors to the university has to be taken into consideration,” Woolridge said
Students have demanded that all fossil fuel investments end by 2021 and that a plan for doing so be announced within two months.
Howell, spokesman for the UMass Foundation, said in an email Thursday that the process of determining whether the foundation should change investment policies cannot begin until it gets a petition. “The Socially Responsible Investing Advisory Committee meets when a petition has been filed,” he wrote.
Woolridge, though, said the petition in March 2015 still stands and that it is not necessary for Divest UMass to refile or amend.
“I don’t think they need to,” Woolridge said, adding that both he and President Martin T. Meehan have committed to advocating for a change in policy under which UMass would divest and prohibit direct investment in fossil fuel companies. “Marty and I have both said what we intend to do.”
The list of demands cannot be met immediately, Woolridge said. The topics cannot be discussed until the trustees next meet June 15 at UMass Boston, and they have to follow the state’s Open Meeting Law . Though trustees met this week at UMass Dartmouth, it was too late to have divestment changes included on the agenda.
“When it gets to the basic issues of investment, we will present this to the UMass Board as it relates to the foundation, and will discuss it and vet it through the board to craft a policy,” Woolridge said.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.