For decades, colleges and universities have financed and supported the fossil fuel industry at the direct expense of their students' futures. Students across the nation have begun to fight back, achieving comprehensive plans from their schools to cut ties with fossil fuels. Under student pressure, Princeton publicly published a plan to fully decarbonize its campus in 2021 and more than 100 U.S. schools have committed to divesting from fossil fuels, including our neighbors at Boston University, Harvard, RISD, UMass, and most recently NYU.

UConn has yet to decarbonize or divest and has failed to provide its students with transparency on its intentions to achieve even the pledges it has committed to, such as carbon-neutrality by 2030 or zero-carbon by 2040. The University of Connecticut and the UConn Foundation have continued to invest in, take money from, and burn fossil fuels on campus, all as climate disasters have caused unprecedented destruction to our state in recent years. These actions are in direct contradiction to the University’s explicitly stated values. Until UConn commits to end these practices—and become a Fossil Fuel Free University—it will remain complicit in the climate crisis; exploiting people, our economy, and our planet; perpetuating global racial inequity and violence; placing us behind other universities; and commodifying our students’ futures. 

AS MEMBERS OF THE UCONN COMMUNITY, WE ARE CALLING ON THE UCONN ADMINISTRATION AND BOARD OF TRUSTEES TO TAKE ACTION TO END THE INFLUENCE OF THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY ON OUR CAMPUS.

OUR DEMANDS: 

1. DECARBONIZE - Create and execute a plan to achieve both carbon-neutrality by 2030 and to fully eliminate the use of fossil fuels at the University of Connecticut by 2040.
2. DIVEST - Fully eliminate the UConn Foundation’s direct and indirect ownership of fossil fuel companies or companies that reap the majority of their revenue from fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and natural gas.
3. DISCLOSE - Publicly disclose comprehensive plans to achieve both carbon-neutrality by 2030 and zero-carbon by 2040—including the already promised 2023 Sustainability Action Plan—the total amount of direct and indirect investments in fossil fuel companies, and the contents of the University’s donations from the ExxonMobil and Shell Oil Company Foundations.