The State of Wesleyan’s Endowment (Issue III)

Motivation for Divestment from Fossil Fuel Companies

Climate change is an existential threat to humanity (Cook 2013). Rising sea levels, increases in weather variability, and changes in global temperatures pose a risk to human and non-human populations in every continent (Podesta 2019). These risks could be reduced by decreasing human emittance of greenhouse gases (Dwortzan 2018). Fossil fuels are the biggest cause of climate change, with one hundred fossil fuel corporations responsible for 71% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions since the official recognition of human caused climate change (Axelrod 2019). Despite this, Wesleyan remains invested in fossil fuel companies and offers students little insight into just how heavily entrenched fossil fuels are in the Endowment.

In light of this, the Wesleyan Committee for Investor Responsibility (CIR) and Wesleyan Student Assembly (WSA) have pushed the University to divest its endowment from fossil fuel companies. A victory of sorts was won in the Spring of 2020 when President Roth announced that Wesleyan would be divesting from all direct security investments in fossil fuels by 2030 (Wesleyan Argus Editorial Staff, n.d.). While this is a step in the right direction, the school has only committed to divesting its direct security holdings which represent 5% of the total endowment. More work must be done to ensure divestment from fossil fuel companies in the other 97% of the endowment.

The Wesleyan CIR Mission

The Wesleyan CIR is a student, faculty, staff, and alumni panel that advises the University’s Board of Trustees on ethical matters related to the endowment. It replaced the Endowment Advisory Committee (EAC), an all-student committee under the authority of the Wesleyan Student Assembly.

There are three key components to what we do: inform, represent, and advocate. First, we strive to create a campus community that is aware of the sources and whereabouts of the University’s fundings. As the CIR is the only entity currently made aware of partial investments held by separate accounts in the endowment, we seek to push for greater transparency and shareholder engagement within the Wesleyan community. Second, we serve as a bridge between campus’ main stakeholders--students, faculty, and alumni--and the Board of Trustees to ensure that their opinions on ethical matters regarding the endowment are heard; we meet with the Investment Office to relay questions and concerns about their investments. Lastly, we urge the Board of Trustees, President Roth, and the Wesleyan Endowment to take action in ways that uphold the interests of the campus stakeholders. The CIR strives to achieve this through advising the Board of Trustees on ethical matters related to the endowment, completing proxy votes, and filing shareholder resolutions.

In recent years, we have focused on advocating for divestment from fossil fuels assets. It is the CIR’s duty to represent the student body and faculty. To this end we have completed a broad survey of stakeholder opinions on divestment and received overwhelming support in favor of divestment from fossil fuels by the Wesleyan endowment within the next 10 years.

According to our survey, out of 208 students, more than 93% agree that the Wesleyan Endowment should implement a divestment plan from fossil fuels. Of this, 83% believe that a reasonable timeline for the divestment plan is within 10 years. On the other hand, of the 22 Wesleyan faculty, over 70% support the implementation of a divestment plan from fossil fuels.

Wesleyan's Board of Trustees Divestment Related Duties

The duties of the Board of Trustees align with divestment from fossil fuels. Their directive is threefold, fulfilling the Universities mission, sustaining the Universities values, and appropriately balancing commitments to current and future generations. Included in the powers of the Board of Trustees is the oversight of the Universities financial affairs, and thus the stewardship of the Wesleyan endowment (Wesleyan Trustees, n.d.). Complete divestment from fossil fuels would help the Board of Trustees accomplish all three aspects of their duties to the University.

Divestment from fossil fuels would move Wesleyan closer to fulfilling its mission. The actions of Wesleyan through their investment decisions should be reflective of the values the University instills through the education it is providing. As of March 30, 20201 Wesleyan’s website stated, “Wesleyan University is dedicated to providing an education in the liberal arts that is characterized by boldness, rigor, and practical idealism.” This last point of practical idealism is particularly salient. Practical idealism places a high value on the implementation of virtuous ideals. Investment in fossil fuel companies goes against practical idealism because supporting companies responsible for the vast majority of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and as such the majority of climate change, is not virtuous.

Divesting from fossil fuels is in alignment with Wesleyan’s values. Wesleyan prides itself on sustainability, as demonstrated through the campus advertising, expansive sustainability department, and plethora of student organizations (Wesleyan University, n.d.). Investing any portion of the endowment in fossil fuels is in direct contradiction and opposition of the sustainability values and efforts of Wesleyan community members.

Divesting the Wesleyan endowment from fossil fuels would help the school appropriately balance commitments to current and future generations. Drastic action is needed to reduce the amount of GHGs emitted into the environment. Fossil fuel companies are the single largest emitters of GHGs, and continuing to invest in them places both the lives of future generations of Wesleyan students and people worldwide at risk (Axelrod 2019).

A precedent exists of Wesleyan divesting from companies whose business or ideals were in violation of the Universities mission before. The most prominent example of divestment for ethical reasons was the schools divestment from companies involved directly or indirectly with perpetuating or supporting the aparteid state in South Africa. This push came about after large student protests and pressure from the community (Cambell 1985). The historical precedent is important because it shows that the University is willing to divest from companies whose actions go against their values. Thus, the same principle can be applied to Fossil Fuel companies.

The CIR and Board of Trustees’ directives to divest the Wesleyan endowment from fossil fuels are the same. Remaining invested in fossil fuels goes against both the CIR’s duties to represent the students and faculties beliefs, and the Board of Trustees duties to the school. While divestment may make sense theoretically, some question its financial practicality. The next section of this report will go into detail about the financial specifics of divestment from fossil fuels.

Endowment Overview

The Wesleyan endowment fund controls over 1.069 billion USD and supports 19% of the University’s operating budget. Capital for the endowment is primarily sourced from charitable donations. This capital is then invested into different asset classes to generate stable growth. Wesleyan’s investment strategy focuses more on identifying and partnering with talented investment managers rather than pursuing individual transactions.

The investment office targets an annual growth rate of 7.5%. To accomplish this, the endowment is diversified into 9 different asset classes (Wesleyan Investments Office 2020). In order of weight in the fund, these include private equity, absolute return, domestic equity, developed equity, emerging equity, real estate, fixed income, natural resources, and cash. Notably, the Investment Office plans on reducing equity devoted to domestic equity and natural resources in favor of private equity, absolute return, and real estate. Expansion in these asset sectors and divestment away from natural resources provides a unique opportunity to incorporate new ESG practices and values into the endowment.

The private sector has been expanding steadily over the last 20 years. From 2004 to 2019, global private equity assets under management increased sixfold (PwC 2021). This trend is slated to increase exponentially to 7.6 to 8.3 trillion in AUM by 2025 (PwC 2021). At the same time, commitment to ESG practices within the private sector is expanding as well. As of 2019, 91% of surveyed private equity firms adopted or are developing ESG investment policies. The proportion of dedicated ESG teams within private equity firms rose from 27% in 2016 to 35% in 2019 (PwC 2021). Given the expansion of ESG within private equity, the opportunities to partner with private equity managers committed to ESG policies are expanding.

Real estate impact investing aims to provide socially responsible investment opportunities in real estate markets. From affordable housing development and debt sourcing to commercial real estate projects in low income communities, impact investing real estate funds provide unique ways to maintain market returns while retaining ESG values. For example, Prologis [PLD], the largest publicly traded real estate investment trust in the industrials sector, has integrated strong climate friendly ESG policies since 2005. This REIT has a compound annual growth rate of 12.9% vs the SP500 compound annual growth rate of 10.88%. Other large impact investing real estate teams within firms like Prudential and Nuveen are also reporting similar rates of return.

Considering that real estate fixed income differs significantly from other fixed income classes as well as traditional equity investments, investing in ESG committed REITs may provide a significant financial and social benefit over broad index funds, many of which hold assets in oil and gas. Notably, Wesleyan’s Investment Office plans to increase the share of the Endowment dedicated to real estate. Thus, there are many new opportunities to invest in projects with significant social benefits.

Why Climate Change Is a Financial Priority

Climate change has increasingly become a contentious topic pushed into public discussion. However, climate change extends pure politics and concerns the future and safety of our society. Many people associate environmental justice as a threat to financial success, unbeknown to the high return potential and social responsibility that can come hand in hand. A study conducted by Harvard Business School demonstrated the higher return of socially responsible stocks by investigating how $1 would grow over 20 years if invested into a portfolio of blue-chip stocks or a portfolio of prominent ESG focused stocks. The results showed a respective growth to $14.46 versus $28.36 (Choi 2021).

Successful investing can be a reflection of market trends and political interests, dictating the growth and success a company, fund or institution can have. 68% of millennials expressed a passionate desire for sustainable investing, proving the attention and thus consequences that result from ignorance of environmental issues (Morgan Stanley 2020). Divestment serves as a means to reflect the student body’s activism, society’s future needs and responsibility, and also the rising cost of carbon emissions.

With increased legislation incentivizing lower emissions and disincentivizing carbon usage through a carbon tax, carbon emissions become an important factor of production that hurts margins and firm efficiency. New studies have shown the correlation between lower carbon emissions, less wastage of water, green energy alternative, and overall productive efficiency (Morgan Stanley 2021).

A Close Look at WSA's ESG Fund Success

The WSA has invested a portion of their allotted funds in ESG Funds. Detailed below is a summary of the respective funds success so far, particularly compared against the S&P 500. The first fund, Brown Advisory Sustainable Growth Fund (BAFWX), has seen a remarkable 15.16% growth rate over the past 10 years. The expense ratio, the cost to investors of managers running a fund, has hovered around 0.7% staying within a reasonable range for an actively managed fund (Thomas 2020). Conversely, the Pax Sustainable Alloc Fund (PAXWX), is passively managed, still retaining a 8.6% 10-year growth rate. The expense ratio is well within a reasonable range for a passively managed fund, hovering around .3% (Kephart 2020). PAXWX allocated 35% of the fund to environmental and sustainable energy investing while uplifting other ESG criteria through filtering tobacco and weapon influenced companies.

The SP500 has reported a strong 10-year average growth rate of 14.16%. Even so, BAFWX and PAXWX have both performed similarly, if not better, while retaining a commitment to ESG investing principles. ESG Funds are an interesting phenomenon, praised by some and questioned by others. Are ESGs over hyped? A bubble waiting to burst? No. ESGs are here to stay and thrive.

ESG criteria is often criticized for being overly subjective and broad. Although that may be true, ESGs should not be disregarded on that basis but should be improved to encompass more structured guidelines. Furthermore, as global warming increasingly approaches a point of no return while companies continue to ignore the damaging effects of their profit-driven actions, any step forward is a step in the right direction.

As for considering the ESG Fund market to be a bubble, research performed by the Morgan Stanley Capital International Research department investigated top performing ESGs and concluded the main driver of performance was earnings growth and higher dividend yields (MSCI 2020). Instead of finding rising valuations of ESGs, which would indicate a bubble, ESGs proved to stand strong because of their financial performance and not hype.

Of course this industry is nonetheless vulnerable to a bubble, given its traction and record inflows, but not in the near future.

A Close Look at the Leading Financial Institutions and Their Commitment to Environmental Sustainability

Leading financial institutions, government agencies, and global initiatives have recognized the intersection of finance and sustainability, prioritizing a search for a solution as they accept their necessary role in combating climate change. Pressure is heating up from consumers, government agencies and the socially responsible companies that have signed onto initiatives like the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI). Comprising 130 banks, or ⅓ of all banks in the world, OGCI has committed to aligning investments with the Paris Climate Accord (Aronoff 2020). This commitment includes the financing of low carbon solutions to oil and gas, considering climate change risks in business planning, and advocating for government policies that implicitly and explicitly value carbon emissions. As governments crackdown to cap global warming, it is estimated that oil and gas companies would have to surrender $900B, one-third of the sector’s current value, to compensate for restrictions (Aronoff 2020).

Furthermore, The Paris Agreement Capital Transition Assessment (PACTA), developed by the 2° Investing Initiative in partnership with the UN, allows companies to analyze their portfolios in alignment with the Paris Climate Accord and different climate scenarios. This assessment formulates a report on how banks can better inform their decisions around climate change solutions as they gain insights on how their clients and loan books affect climate scenarios. With a tool like PACTA, companies can reach their goals of divestment, carbon neutrality, and others more efficiently and timely (Morgan Stanley 2020).

Peer Schools

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset management firm, shook the financial world with CEO Larry Fink’s 2021 “Letter to Shareholders.” In his letter, Fink outlines the necessity for companies and institutions to include Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues as a key pillar in any organization’s investment thesis. He also stated BlackRock is committed to net-zero carbon emissions within its portfolio by 2050. BlackRock manages roughly $106 billion in assets internationally. One particular focus of the letter was that BlackRock’s clients make long term planning with short term ambitious benchmarks. At present, the Wesleyan administration and Investment Office have provided the community with no updates on how the transition to net-neutrality is going (following President Roth’s Letter to Campus on March 5th 2020 stating):

“At its most recent meeting on Feb. 29, the Wesleyan Board of Trustees discussed how to better align endowment investment practices with the University’s broad sustainability efforts. Given the climate emergency, the investment and ecological risks associated with fossil fuels and the Investment Committee’s own environmental, social and governance guidelines, there was broad agreement among trustees not to make new fossil fuel investments and to wind down current investments in this sector as quickly as possible while minimizing the negative impact to the value of the endowment. The University will be divested from direct fossil fuel investments by the end of the decade… All of these developments have been stimulated by the thoughtful contributions and advocacy of students, faculty, alumni and staff. We are grateful!”

To provide some clarity, there are 2 current Committees for Investor Responsibility. One, composed of faculty, alumni, and Wesleyan parents sits in on quarterly meetings regarding updates on the Endowment. The other, the student version of this Committee, conducts proxy votes regarding the endowment. Both committees have limited knowledge of the names of fund managers with whom the University is invested. The Investment Office is the only Wesleyan institution that has full knowledge of the investment philosophies of the Endowment’s current fund managers. The faculty, alumni, and Wes-parent CIR, like the student CIR, have also advocated for the divestment from fossil fuels -- although mainly from a financial rather than ethical standpoint. During a recent meeting (on April 8, 2021) with Anne Martin, head of the Investment Office, and Brett Salafia, an officer in the Investment Office office, CIR Co-Chairs had the opportunity to discuss the future of fossil fuels within Wesleyan’s portfolio.

Prior to this meeting, the Investment Office had not offered students a clear outline of its goals in achieving divestment from fossil fuels. The Investment Office has not reached out to the student CIR with permission to conduct proxy votes. The CIR had only received an emailed list of the University’s direct security holdings which have not changed between FY2019, FY2020 and FY2021. The dominant theme within the discussion was that Wesleyan was never as heavily invested in fossil fuels as peer schools, in particular Middlebury. As such, the Investment Office stated that less than 2% of the entire Endowment is currently invested in fossil fuels. Over the past 10 years, the market climate towards fossil fuels has not been positive or capable of generating reliable returns. Universities and investors are looking to divest from fossil fuels not only out of an essence of being a good samaritan, but because there is also a lot of uncertainty concerning whether fossil fuels are a viable investment in the long term. While ESG-friendly social-impact funds have had remarkable returns in recent years, there was a shared fear amongst the Investment Office and CIR that we might be in the midst of an “ESG market bubble.” This leads to the question of whether or not there will be a resurgence in high returns from fossil fuel companies in the future.

Nonetheless, 2% of the endowment being invested in fossil fuels still comprises about $20 million USD. This is a large number despite being significantly smaller than some of Wesleyan’s peer schools. In order for the CIR to correctly conduct its job, we are asking for the greater cooperation from the Investment Office in including student voices in overseeing the investment of the Endowment. Ideally, we would like to know how the University is progressing towards the phasing out of fossil fuels from the current direct security holdings, which encompass only about 5% of the Endowment. We would also like to have greater insight into the nature of our fund managers and their investment philosophies, similar to the kind of information Middlebury and Tufts offer students.

This past February, Tufts notified the student body that the University would prohibit direct investment in coal and tar sands companies, as well as committing to investing $25 million in positive impact funds (TuftsNow 2021). These investments will roll out over 5 years and focus on climate change-related funds. Tufts also stated that they will notify “all current and future investment managers to inform them of Tufts’ decision” and commit to divesting from coal and tar sands. Tufts’ commitment to tracking their progress will be supported by offering the student body as much transparency as possible through the creation of a “dashboard” to track the university’s action. Tufts’ endowment is estimated to be $1.89 billion (TuftsNow 2021).

Similarly, Middlebury College has an endowment of roughly $1.056 billion, which is managed by Investure (Middlebury Endowment 2021). Investure, based out of Charlottesville, Virginia, manages around $12 billion in funds from other schools, and has committed to the full divestment of all assets from fossil fuels. Middlebury notified their community of the decision to divest in January of 2019 (Middlebury Endowment 2021). The move came after the Board of Trustees unanimously agreed that it was time for Middlebury to divest from fossil fuels. The withdrawal from fossil fuel investments will occur as follows:

• 25% reduction in 5 years

• 50% reduction in 8 years

• Complete elimination within 15 years

As of mid-2019, Investure has not directly invested in any new funds in oil and gas on Middlebury’s behalf. The direct security holdings in oil and gas formed around 4% of the total endowment.

Unfortunately, Wesleyan has not offered the student body similar levels of transparency. This report is seeking to provide some more information for students, faculty, and alumni alike. Given Wesleyan’s endowment is similar in size to both Tufts and Middlebury, the CIR and the student body would like answers regarding the current state of Wesleyan’s endowment. Ideally, as Middlebury has done, we would appreciate clarification as to whether the University continues to seek out fund managers with portfolios highly concentrated in oil and gas assets.

The Investments office cites the following resolution: “A resolution passed by the Board of Trustees in 2015, with input from the Wesleyan Committee for Investor Responsibility, states that ‘in selecting external managers or considering direct investments,’ the Investment Committee should ‘consider environmental, social and governance factors as part of their investment process’” (Wesleyan Investments Office 2021).

The Investment office also claims to use an ESG section in each investment memo sent to the Investment Committee. However, the CIR has not been notified about any of these memos, nor does the CIR know how these memos define ESG.

A step in the right direction for Wesleyan’s Investment Office might include the creation of an ESG dashboard similar to that of Tufts. One potential course of action for the Investment Office might be allowing the CIR to support the Investment Office in the creation of some sort of ESG metric.

Setting short term, ambitious benchmarks similar to what Middlebury has done would also be helpful in moving Wesleyan’s Endowment away from fossil fuels. However, this endeavour is difficult to achieve given 95 % of Wesleyan’s Endowment is managed by fund managers. In other words, much of Wesleyan’s Endowment lies in commingled funds (that is, the Endowments of multiple different universities, or assets, managed by an external organization like a private equity firm). As such, the University is constricted in actually ordering fund managers to divest from fossil fuels. Instead, for those fund managers who do seek out investments in fossil fuels, the University must wait for those contracts to expire (which takes anywhere from 5 to 20 years). Seeing as Wesleyan’s endowment is valued at $1.08 billion, slightly larger than Middlebury’s, there is little reason to believe that divestment from fossil fuels is a futile endeavor. Furthermore, it is likely that Wesleyan’s endowment will be fully divested from fossil fuels by 2030.

How Wesleyan’s Path to Divestment Can Lead to A Reinvestment in Middletown

Wesleyan University has actively advertised its global awareness, as it has highlighted how crucial it is to invest its one-billion-dollar endowment in industries that will positively impact the student-body and Middletown area for decades to come. Unfortunately, many of Wesleyan’s past monetary endeavors do not seem to fit into the narrative of the University creating a forward-looking and dynamic environment for the community in which it resides.

Wesleyan University has a history of investing in controversial industries, including the Israeli occupation, weapon manufacturers, and fossil fuel production (Roth 2015). Although President Michael S. Roth has promised that the University will officially divest from fossil fuels by 2031, Wesleyan refuses to divest from a plethora of other questionable financial investments (Roth 2019). This neglectful pattern of ignoring the student body’s divestment demands has led many, including students and student-based organizations, to distrust Wesleyan’s endowment spending. Alice Swan ’21, communication liaison for Wesleyan’s Black Student Union Ujamaa, stressed in an interview with the CIR that Wesleyan’s endowment spending is discouraging. She believes there is not enough acknowledgment of the dangers of Wesleyan’s current fossil fuel investments, especially since these investments disproportionately affect minority groups and POC individuals (Swan 2021). And Alice makes an extremely well-grounded point; one of the reasons Wesleyan has been so adamant about continuous fossil fuel investments is that this industry has been “profitable” in the past, allowing for the endowment to steadily increase. Thus, the administration argues that the negative aspects of investing in fossil fuel companies is outweighed by the profitability associated with these investments; to the administration, this profitability allows the university to increase its financial aid for Wesleyan students. However, a massive endowment means nothing if the lives of Black and Brown bodies in various communities are threatened.

In a recent study, Food & Water Watch observed the locations of Pennsylvania power plants and found that the locations of Pennsylvania fracking sites were irregularly located near marginalized communities: communities with “higher economic stress, lower educational levels” and/or BIPOC communities (Byrd 2018). It is no secret that, when it comes to environmental injustice, the most vulnerable will always face the consequences while the most privileged rarely feel it. Furthermore, this indifference to the destruction of BIPOC livelihoods is not just an issue occurring in faraway states, but it is also occurring right here, in the backyard of the University. As Ben Silverstone ‘22, leader of GRO (Grow, Revitalize, Organize) Dreamville (a guerilla gardening and urban farming organization in Middletown) explains, Wesleyan is a school “at the top of the hill” (Silverstone 2021). The school is geographically situated between northern Middletown and southern Middletown. Southern Middletown is suburban with a higher population of middleclass White locals, while northern Middletown has a higher population of low-income Black and Brown residents. As Ben Silverstone explains, North Middletown’s environment is vastly different from the suburbs of South Middletown, with the northern neighborhoods having higher pollution rates and increased roads and highways that cut off access to the nearby river. Although the campus is a 20-minute walk to the northern neighborhoods of Middletown, it is often politically and socially separated from the north.

Wesleyan needs to divest from harmful industries, and on its track to divesting, the University must also consider reallocating its funds to support those living in the greater Middletown area. The school has done community-based mutual aid before, yet has often “struggled in its ability to fulfill its promises,” Ben Silverstone states (Silverstone 2021). One of these unfulfilled promises can be seen in the Wesleyan-funded youth community center on Green Street. This center had gardening plots that allowed children to gain hands-on experience in environmentalism, but it was defunded by President Roth and the University as a whole by 2017 (Wesleyan Argus 2017). When it comes down to simply protecting the most vulnerable beings of Middletown, Wesleyan can do more.

As Alice Swan states, “There was an operation in which the Wesleyan community helped write letters to survivors of sexual violence, yet women apart of the local prison, (in which Wesleyan has educational programs) were left out” (Swan 2021). This inattention to vulnerable women, many of color, is just one example of Wesleyan neglecting nearby communities while struggling to fulfill the few promises they have made for said communities. Thus, the University has continued to leave a polarizing footprint in the Middletown area.

If Wesleyan desires the title of an environmentally progressive university, the work needs to start at home. Investments in fossil fuel companies have already been proven to be environmentally harmful and financially risky. However, investing back into Middletown is environmentally sustainable, financially feasible, and, overall, the least Wesleyan can do for a community that allows for this campus to prosper. “Investments denote some type of return” Alice Swan states (Swan 2021). However, she stresses that Wesleyan can fund community-based matters, and that University should not worry about short-term profit, because these “investments” benefit the campus and community in the long term. Alice highlights the importance of the University creating a community fund that would allow for a solidified mutual aid program. With this mutual aid program, the University would be able to aid vulnerable locals as well as those who need environmental rehabilitation for their land (this environmental justice would include community gardens, food drives, etc.). Ben Silverstone continues this mutual aid sentiment by explaining how Wesleyan could reinvest in after-school programs that focus on bringing the youth closer to nature (Silverstone 2021). This community investment could allow an often ecologically-divided community to have a moment of environmental togetherness.

Wesleyan’s path to environmental justice is much more complicated than just divesting from fossil fuels and other environmentally harmful industries. Through my conversations with leaders of Ujamaa and GRO Dreamville, one can see that there is much intersectionality in the process of fighting for environmental safety. Wesleyan has played a pivotal role in neglecting the continuous dismantling and destabilizing of Middletown. Nevertheless, the University can redefine its name by taking local environmental projects more seriously through the reallocation of funds to the greater Middletown area. This redefined focus on community mutual aid will allow Wesleyan’s environmental policies to positively affect the most underrepresented and neglected groups.

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