By Ruaidhrí Saulnier

Nearly three years on since officially divesting from fossil fuels, what has Trinity done since? Did the move influence other colleges across Ireland, its sustainability practices, and divestments’ impact on Ireland’s emission goals, and the impact on the Irish 2030 sustainable development goals. 

Getting Trinity to commit to divestment was a huge win, but what has come of it?

The divestment was first announced in December of 2016, following a fifteen month campaign, led by the student campaign “Fossil Free TCD”. Trinity joined 677 other institutions and 58,399 individuals at the time who pledged to divest from fossil fuels. These groups included governments and investors from 77 countries including banks, pension funds, insurance companies, and institutes in the health, education, philanthropy, and faith sectors.  Together they represent $5 trillion in assets. At the time, Trinity had €6 million invested in oil companies.

After the success of the Fossil Free TCD campaign, other student groups on the island followed suit, notably the University of Galway (formerly NUIG) in March 2017 and Queen’s University Belfast in May 2017, as well as a national campaign “Fossil Free Ireland” in July of that same year. More recently, Trinity College Cambridge has also pledged to divest from fossil fuels, following similar calls to divest from alumni.

Despite these promises to divest, last year the University Times reported that Trinity still has shares worth at least €8 million in companies directly involved in fossil fuel activities, despite saying it would divest from such companies several years ago. Final divesting occurred in the first quarter of 2022, as confirmed in an email by university spokesperson Catherine O’Mahony. Information on the actual stocks in the fund is hard to find. However, the guidelines prepared by Solactive provide comprehensive guidelines on which companies can be invested in through that fund. Trinity has also divested from the arms and tobacco industries, also reflected in the same fund.

Divestment by one party requires investment by another. Some critics of divestment say that this removes conscious investors from the discussion as to how the fossil fuel industry is run. This new investor, who may have already been an investor previously, is now more interested in growing the polluting company, more than the divestor who sold their stake. To be more climate conscious, some critics say the divestment needs to be kept and run off. In other words, kept operational until the end of its lifespan, with few upgrades and maintenance and upgrades in productivity, instead of being sold to someone who will keep operating and expanding it. Divestment makes for a better press release. Run-off makes for a better world. This is what Harvard’s current remaining fossil fuel investments are doing. 

In 2018, the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill passed with all-party support in the Dáil. This bill compels the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund to sell off its investments in global fossil fuel industries. At the time, the value of this investment in fossil fuels was €318 million across 150 companies. If the divestments decrease Ireland’s carbon emissions, it is still very far behind where it should be, missing emissions targets year on year, with the third highest per capita emissions in the EU. The goals are to cut CO2 emissions by at least 80%, compared to 1990 levels, by 2050 from the electricity, building and transport sectors, and take an “approach to carbon neutrality in the agriculture and land-use sector”.

While Ireland’s performance with regard to some Sustainable Development Goals is above the EU average, it lags behind in the environmental goals, most notably SDG 12 Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 13 Climate Action SDG 17 Partnership for the Goals and SDG 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure.

In spite of all this, Ireland is currently on track to miss its 2030 goals.

As of July 2023, 1593 Institutions are pledging to divest in fossil fuels. Their combined spending power amounts to a total value of €36.59 trillion in assets, as reported by the Global Fossil Fuel Divestment Commitments Database in 2023.