THE NATIONAL UNION OF STUDENTS (NUS) has endorsed the Fossil Free Careers campaign organised by People & Planet. It is calling on all careers services within educational institutions to end their relationships with oil, gas and mining companies, and for the institutions to withdraw their investments from fossil fuel companies and weapons manufacturers.
In a statement issued on 23 February, the NUS said:
“NUS wholeheartedly supports the work of People & Planet’s Fossil Free Careers campaign, and calls on all education institution careers services to end their relationships with oil, gas and mining companies. NUS encourages students and other members of educational institutions to get involved. We believe that any campaign to decolonise education must target the material complicity of our institutions in colonial and climate violence, and we believe that any student campaign for climate justice must do the same.
“NUS has a long and rich history of supporting campaigns that use boycotts and divestments as a non-violent strategy to pressure organisations into ending unethical practices. NUS’s decolonisation work continues this tradition, as we believe that there is no ‘decolonising education’ unless educational institutions end all forms of complicity with companies and institutions which uphold and perpetuate violence and devastation towards human life and towards the planet.
“People & Planet’s Fossil Free campaign has done vital organising to end institutional financial investments in fossil fuel companies. Their Fossil Free Careers campaign builds upon this successful legacy to bring an end to recruitment pipelines from university careers services into oil, gas and mining companies: the sectors most responsible for the climate and ecological crisis. With the widespread and increasing success of divestment campaigns like Fossil Free, NUS believes that work which continues the struggle against the climate crisis and the violence it wreaks on human life as well as the life of our planet is absolutely vital. It is our responsibility to work collectively to end our institutions’ ongoing and multiple forms of complicity in violence. Fossil Free Careers demonstrates that the struggle goes beyond divestment, and we must continue the fight until all forms of life on this planet are safe.
“Campaigns have drawn attention to the investment portfolios of educational institutions, encouraging institutions to divest by withdrawing their investments from fossil fuel companies and weapons manufacturers. Educational institutions do not only uphold the fossil fuel and arms industries through their investment portfolios. These companies are also bolstered through recruitment pipelines from education into corporations responsible for great injustice and harm.
“Our educational institutions choose to work together with companies like Shell and BAE Systems to advertise roles on their behalf to students and graduates. The activities of oil, gas, mining and arms companies are implicitly condoned, and their presence normalised to students when they are platformed at careers fairs and in job listings. Educational institutions must take urgent action to embed sustainability and ethics considerations in their careers service operations: it’s time for Fossil Free Careers.”
* More information on the Fossil Free Careers campaign here.
* Source: National Union of Students