Current Proposed Policies

What are the current proposed policies?

This page lists the Policy Proposals going forward to the next Student Panel (Tuesday 21st of May 2024). Please note that we undergo a review process with the proposers before the panels and so these are liable to change:

1. Should LSESU seek dialogue with LSE senior leadership to press for full and meaningful divestment from fossil fuels and weapons, including indirect investments? 

Issue:

Although LSE does not invest directly in any companies, it has significant indirect investments in fossil fuels and weapons companies. Several of LSE's Fund Managers are involved in financing fossil fuel and weapons companies, and one, JP Morgan, has ranked first in fossil fuel financing since 2016 according to the Rainforest Action Network. Moreover, LSESU Palestine Society’s recently published investment report Assets in Apartheid: LSE’s Complicity in Genocide of the Palestinian People, Arms Trade, and Climate Breakdown finds significant governance and transparency issues related to LSE’s investments and ESG policy. These investments and related policy issues contradict the spirit of LSE's ESG commitments, undermine its world-leading reputation, and send a discouraging message to students who are actively working towards a more sustainable future.  

Solution:

SESU should seek dialogue with LSE senior leadership to press for full and meaningful divestment from fossil fuels and weapons, including indirect investments. More specifically, based on the recommendations of the Assets in Apartheid report, LSESU should make the following demands of LSE leadership in terms of governance, transparency, and divestment: 

Governance 

1. Launch a transparent investigation to understand how and why LSE currently invests in companies that violate the spirit of its ESG policy and why the current LSE Asset Managers were selected; this should include ways to repair harm caused by these investment decisions. 

2. Reconfigure the Investments Sub-committee to include meaningful and democratic faculty and student representation and oversight. 

3. Establish an open process to update the ESG policy with substantial input from key LSE stakeholders, including the LSESU, LSE UCU, interested student societies, and faculty with expertise with ESG investments. This process should include mechanisms for all stakeholders to approve the new policy rather than only be consulted on it. 

4. Establish regular feedback loops between the Investments Sub-committee and key LSE stakeholders to review the investments portfolio and its governance. Such stakeholders should include the LSESU Palestine Society, LSE UCU, Academic Board, LSE Transition Pathway Initiative Centre, the Just Transition Finance Lab, and other relevant student societies and faculty with expertise in ESG investments and their relation to human rights violations, corporate complicity, disarmament, and just climate futures. 

5. Create and publish a policy regarding unacceptable business activities of the LSE Asset Managers and mutual fund managers that aligns with LSE’s ESG policy; consequently, this may necessitate selecting new fund managers that align with LSE’s principles. 

6. Create procedures for cases when LSE Asset Managers have selected funds that are not compliant with the ESG policy; this should include accountability mechanisms. 

7. Establish a reporting and investigatory system whereby LSE members can register any violations of the ESG policy and any other types of fund mismanagement. 

8. Establish a system for keeping up to date on corporate complicity in relation to the arms trade, climate breakdown, and human rights violations. 

Transparency 

1. Publish the Investment Policy and Mandate and the Annual Investment Review by the Investments Sub-committee. 

2. Create and produce an annual report written for LSE members and to be published with the investment portfolio. This annual report should detail how the investments portfolio aligns with LSE’s ESG policy and list all of LSE’s financial relationships through the portfolio, including with bond issuers, investee companies, mutual fund managers, and LSE Asset Managers.269 The relationship to the company should be explicitly tied to a holding. The report should be written in accessible, jargon-free language. 

3. Provide links to the annual reports of all mutual funds with the publication of the investment's portfolio. 

4. Institutionalise dedicated quarterly checks and reports with the LSE Asset Managers to review how investments are in line with LSE’s ESG policy. 

5. Include the full name of the bond issuers in the publication of the investment's portfolio. 

6. Release all information on the funds managed by Mercer. 

Divestment 

1. Announce LSE’s intention to divest from all companies involved in human rights violations; extraction and/or distribution of fossil fuels; proliferation and/or manufacture of arms; and financing of fossil fuel companies and/or weapons producers. 

2. Immediately divest from all mutual funds that contain companies involved in any of these egregious activities. This includes holdings that invest in companies designated by the UN as involved in activities that violate the rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and any that comprise companies supplying the Israeli military. 

3. Investigate all avenues to remove investments in bonds issued by companies involved in egregious activities. Meanwhile, LSE should distance itself from these investments and pledge to no longer provide financing to these companies. 

4. Instruct LSE Asset Managers not to invest in any companies, whether through bonds or mutual funds, listed in Appendix B of the Assets in Apartheid report or a comparable and more complete report or resource. The resources listed in Appendix A of the report should be used to check for compliance with future investments. 

5. Publish a report on the status of divestment from companies engaged in egregious activities one year after the initial announcement of commitment to divest.

2. Should the LSESU adopt an official policy in favour of the decriminalisation of sex work and lobby LSE to provide more support for student sex workers? 

Issue:

Even pre-pandemic, 1/5 of students had considered doing sex work [1] and estimates are that up to 200,000 students are currently involved in sex work [2]  

This number is rising due to the ongoing cost of living crisis. Students are engaged in sex work mainly to cover their cost of living and study. That means student sex workers are a demographic that need tailored support by the Students’ Union and support by the university more broadly.  

While sex work is not technically illegal in the UK, working with others indoors (even if for safety purposes) is criminalised as “brothel keeping” and street-based sex workers are regularly charged with loitering and soliciting. Those involved in online sex work are constantly at risk of being outed or having their data misused by large online platforms. All the negative effects of criminalisation are compounded by stigma, prevalent in the university context too, both among students and staff. This means that student sex workers are less able to speak about their experience, advocate for their needs, and access support services. In addition to being discriminated against under ‘morality’ clauses in accommodation and ‘fit to practice’ policies on university courses, sex working students experience breaches of confidentiality where staff disclose their sex working status without their consent when approached for support.  

Solution:

1. An acknowledgement by LSESU that some students at LSE are already engaging in sex work to cover their cost of living and study, and an explicit commitment to their safety and wellbeing.  

2. LSESU to take an official stance in support of decriminalisation.  

Unions at UCL and Goldsmiths[3] have done so and students have reported “feeling more able to talk to university staff if I need support and speaking up about what I need - it just feels like the institution is no longer actively trying to harm me by directly criminalizing me, or at the very least being complicit in the criminalisation of the work I do in order to study and live in the first place”.  

Having an official stance in favour of decriminalization reduces stigma, which means student sex workers can access better support without judgment.  

An explicit policy should be modelled on policies drafted by sex worker led organisations – an example, drafted by students organising with the sex worker led English Collective of Prostitutes is here:  

• This union commits to supporting the full decriminalization of sex work in order to better protect student sex workers from discrimination, stigma and violence. 

• A policy that prohibits non-voluntary disclosures by staff when approached by students about their sex working status. Training for staff on this issue.  

• Look into providing accessible hardship funds for people engaged in sex work or other informal sector survival work, so they can leave (or reduce) the amount of sex work they must do.  

• Comprehensive review of policies and guidelines (including discriminatory ‘morality’ clauses and ‘fit to practice’ policies). 

3. Lobbying the LSE to implement these same commitments to student sex worker safety and wellbeing. 

Footnotes:

[1] https://students.leeds.ac.uk/info/1000112/healthy-relationships-with-yourself-and-others/1780/students-engaged-in-sex-work  

[2] https://thetab.com/uk/2021/09/20/thousands-of-students-are-sex-workers-universities-need-to-do-more-to-protect-them-222364  

[3] https://www.goldsmithssu.org/pageassets/activism/democracy/policies/active/2014-15-Supporting-student-sex-workers.pdf https://studentsunionucl.org/advice-and-support/advice/student-sex-workers 

3. Should the LSESU facilitate and support Spaces and Performances for Creative Arts Societies?

Issue: 

LSESU Creative Societies encounter many difficulties and obstacles in their basic function: putting on performances and giving students a space for creative exploration and expression. This is primarily due to the following: - Securing performance spaces for our productions can be very difficult due to external and academic bookings being given priority over ours.  

- The lack of storage space for Drama Society props/set/costumes apart from a singular cupboard in the Old Building.  

- Difficulty in communicating with LSE teams and staff such as the Estates Team, AV Team, and Porters, and limited success in agreed requests being delivered  

- The Weston Studio in the Marshall was designed as a black box theatre space, fully equipped with curtains and some lanterns – however (I believe) there is a lack of a lighting desk from which the equipment can be operated.  

Solution:

- Avoiding taking bookings when societies have already confirmed them, especially to external third parties.  

- Provision of a small storage space dedicated to drama in the SU building (possibly in the storage area of the ARC?).  

- To provide better training and support for students in communication with the Estates Team, AV Team, and Porters to advocate for changes such as repairing broken lights in the Old Theatre, removal of the lecture podium before rehearsals and performances where possible, and help is delivering set as requested. 

 - A potential installation/looking into the possibility of a lighting desk/tech facilities in the Weston Studio to utilise its design, and/or an updated lighting desk in The Venue (which would also benefit the LSESU when hosting events in the space) 

If you would like to oppose any of the above proposals, or you would like to speak (or recommend someone to speak) at the Student Panel as an expert or person with lived experience, please get in touch at su.democracy@lse.ac.uk

If you would like to hear the discussions surrounding whether the above policies are approved, please come along to our next Student Panels as an observer!

Find out more about the Policy Proposal and Student Panel process here.