Divestment Update: November 2024

Divestment Update from LSESU   

This update aims to will inform students about the upcoming ESG Review, how the SU is engaging with it and the ways students can get involved. 

Over the last few weeks, the Sabbatical Officers have been working to get clarity from LSE about the structure of the upcoming ESG Review, the relative power of the Consultative Group that students and staff will sit on as well as the nature of the training students and staff will receive in preparation for the Review.  

 

What we want students to know... 

         
1. Student activists got LSE to agree to a review of its ESG Policy. Now the SU are working to ensure that the consultation process is fair, transparent and genuinely draws on the views of students.   

LSE student activists who wrote and negotiated on below of PalSoc’s Assets in Apartheid Report did not ask for consultative process and instead requested that key stakeholders to be actively included in the drafting process of any future review of LSE’s investments.   

In response to this, LSE has repeatedly emphasised that decisions about School’s investment policy and endowment must, legally, be made by Council and as such cannot be made through a democratic process, and we recognise this reality.  

Since the ESG Review and, specifically, the Consultative Group are, according to LSE, the only formal way that students can shape the investment policy of the school, we are working to ensure students that meaningful consultation is possible. 

We stand in solidarity with large numbers of students who want ethical investing to be a top priority in the review of the school’s ESG policy, therefore we are concerned that training organised by LSE will focus solely on technical aspects of ESG and LSE’s endowment. We are working to empower all LSE students and staff to dispute the status quo—i.e. the overwhelmingly indirect, opaque and unethical nature of LSE’s current investment policy. 

So, how are we working to ensure meaningful consultation: 

• The SU shortlisted and interviewed several students, and we have now selected three students that we are confident have the expertise and skills to engage effectively in the ESG Review process and achieve divestment. 
• We are organising training for students and staff who sit on the Consultative Group from external organisations and student activists on how to understand LSE’s investments and effectively negotiate with powerholders at LSE. 
• The SU’s Termly Town Hall will take place on the 3rd of December, we encourage all students to attend. This Town Hall will include an in-depth update on the Union’s work on Divestment so far and how the ESG Review is panning out. 

 
2. The SU will ensure that the issue of investment, both direct and indirect, in entities implicated in human rights violations remains front and centre of the ESG Review.   

• We are aware that LSE’s communication on the ESG Review has stated that any decisions made by Council on July 9th would not be considered by the Review. As many students and staff have informed us that they are concerned that LSE is attempting to pre-emptively ignore any further consideration of investment in entities implicated in human rights violations as part of the ESG Review. We want to assure students that we will ensure that this remains a key priority during this process. 
• To quote and echo the words of LSE Staff in their recent letter to Council: ‘we believe the refusal to consider divestment as first an ethical judgement involving the School’s commitment to human rights standards and second a legal matter involving respect for international law, represents a choice that, contrary to the School’s aim to remain institutionally neutral, will appear to observers as politically partial’ (LSE Staff, 2024).   
• LSE students who have been campaigning for divestment are increasingly supported, particularly considering the UN ICJ’s January ruling as well the ICC’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister and Defence Minister for war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is now a growing consensus among international human rights experts about the human rights violations that have been and continue to be committed against Palestinians in Gaza. 
• Institutionalising considerations of human rights violations, international law and environmental sustainability within any future investment policy at LSE is important to many students and the SU will continue to support this throughout this Review process!