pledge
If elected as President and Vice President of Harvard College’s Undergraduate Council, we, Sruthi and
Julia, pledge to fully commit ourselves to actively supporting 1) the complete divestment of the
University’s endowment from the fossil fuel industry and 2) the pursuit of greater sustainability on the
University campus.
We recognize that climate change is a pervasive and global threat. With catastrophic effects now
forecasted for as soon as 2040 according to the latest IPCC report, there is an imminent need for climate
action. As leaders of the UC, we will work to hold Harvard accountable for fulfilling its duty as an
institution with vast social, political, and economic influence to pursue such action and display moral
leadership on environmental policy. We affirm that displaying this leadership requires divesting the
University’s endowment from fossil fuel companies, whose unsustainable and unethical practices threaten
the health of our student body and world community. Displaying moral leadership also requires
improving sustainability on campus, especially by working to ensure that Harvard fulfills the goals of its
Climate Action Plan to be fossil fuel-neutral by 2026 and fossil fuel-free by 2050.
In order to achieve these goals, we pledge to collaborate with student groups, including Harvard
Undergraduates for Environmental Justice, and to always prioritize sustainability and environmental
justice. We will accomplish this by:
Julia, pledge to fully commit ourselves to actively supporting 1) the complete divestment of the
University’s endowment from the fossil fuel industry and 2) the pursuit of greater sustainability on the
University campus.
We recognize that climate change is a pervasive and global threat. With catastrophic effects now
forecasted for as soon as 2040 according to the latest IPCC report, there is an imminent need for climate
action. As leaders of the UC, we will work to hold Harvard accountable for fulfilling its duty as an
institution with vast social, political, and economic influence to pursue such action and display moral
leadership on environmental policy. We affirm that displaying this leadership requires divesting the
University’s endowment from fossil fuel companies, whose unsustainable and unethical practices threaten
the health of our student body and world community. Displaying moral leadership also requires
improving sustainability on campus, especially by working to ensure that Harvard fulfills the goals of its
Climate Action Plan to be fossil fuel-neutral by 2026 and fossil fuel-free by 2050.
In order to achieve these goals, we pledge to collaborate with student groups, including Harvard
Undergraduates for Environmental Justice, and to always prioritize sustainability and environmental
justice. We will accomplish this by:
- Bringing critical voices of students who are very committed to environmental issues into conversations that we will be having with admin, as well as into conversations with the UC as a whole to bring these issues to the forefront of the minds of not only administrators, but also current representatives who drive change on this campus.
- Bolstering student awareness of sustainability (and other environmental issues) and encourage greater participation among the undergraduate population with this initiative. As student representatives, we should strive to foster productive campus-wide dialogue on the subject of sustainability and environmental justice, and we plan to do this by directly supporting the organizing efforts of HUEJ either financially, logistically, through publicity, or in any other substantial way.
- Continuing to educate ourselves and others on the process by which Harvard has been approaching (or not approaching) it’s environmental goals, how it could do better, the work that HUEJ has been doing to push Harvard to improve this, and how the Undergraduate Council as a student government can better support HUEJ as a body that organizes that directly affect students’ futures and reflect the moral leadership of the University.
Sruthi and Julia have already shown their commitment: Sruthi has directly supported efforts of Divest through her work with Dems in her role co-chairing the programming committee, through which she has actively worked to bring Divest to meetings to spread its message throughout the Harvard community and write letters urging President Faust to ask Harvard to divest from fossil fuels. And just this past weekend, when no petition for ballot referenda reached the requisite number of signatures to make it onto the ballot because of a failure in the democratic process of the UC to vet and condense the number of referendum questions that needed signatures (there were several about divestment so it is possible that many students voted for one but not others), Julia immediately reacted and submitted (and passed) the referendum question “Harvard should completely divest its endowment from holdings in the fossil fuel industry”, bringing in organizers from HUEJ to speak on the issue.