The Sustainable Endowment Institute (SEI) recently released its College Sustainability Report Card. According to its Executive Summary, the Report Card “seeks to encourage sustainability as a priority in college operations and endowment investment practices by offering independent yearly assessments of progress.”

Institutions of higher education have played a significant role in SRI at least since the South African divestment movement of the 1980s. The Report Card examines both the investment practices of these schools and the sustainability of core university operations.

SEI finds that “the level of campus sustainability initiatives far outpaces that of endowment sustainability activity.” Responsible food-service and recycling practices, for example, earned “A” grades for 29% of schools. Only 4% of colleges achieved the same grade for their “Endowment Transparency.”

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As we look back at the genocide and military conflict in Darfur, Sudan during 2007, the Sudan divestment movement in the U.S. has largely succeeded in bringing increased pressure on financial firms and companies involved in Sudan to sever their financial ties to the Government of Sudan.

A few of the many divestment-related news stories from the past year are highlighted below:

Institutional investors in Petrochina, a Chinese oil company with significant oil exploration projects in Sudan, faced shareholder pressure to divest from the company. Save Darfur, a U.S.-based advocacy group launched a campaign targeting Berkshire Hathaway, Fidelity, and Franklin Templeton, three of the largest investors in Petrochina.

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