Monday, March 21, 2016

To the members of the Resources Committee:

Princeton Sustainable Investment Initiative (PSII) has submitted a new proposal
on Monday, March 21, 2016 urging the University to divest from coal immediately and
make plans for full divestment from fossil fuel extraction. Last academic year, PSII
submitted a different proposal on sustainable investment, and we anticipate that many of
the concerns brought up in the Resources Committees response to the previous proposal
may be brought up again in regards to the new proposal. We would like to take the time
to address several of these concerns as part of the continuing dialogue on this important
subject. In particular, we will address the issue of disassociation and procedural issues.
Disassociation
President Eisgruber emphasized the issue of disassociation in his letter to the
Resources Committee, and was extensively quoted in their response to PSII. We believe
that the core of the disassociation principle is that, if we choose to make investment
choices based on ethical principles, our campus behaviors should reflect those same
ethical principles. Unlike President Eisgruber, we believe that our proposal allows for
precisely that. As has been acknowledged by everyone in this discussion, Princeton is
working to make its campus more energy efficient and sustainable. This is not an
overnight effort, but one that takes consistent and prolonged work. Similarly, we see the
move to cease investing in fossil fuel extraction as advocating a long term reduction in
the environmental harms of the endowments finances. PSII has always sought to create a
gradual plan to change the environmental impact of our endowment, just as we plan to do
with our campus. Pursuing sustainability goals on campus while continuing to invest in
the extraction of fossil fuels is counterproductive. We acknowledge that the university
cannot end its reliance on fossil fuel consumption tomorrow, nor should it cut off ties
with energy companies, but that should not prevent us from doing the best we can to limit
our contribution to climate change.
Furthermore, to draw a distinction between the way we approach our endowment
and our campus is to ignore the integral role our endowment plays in financing
everything we do here. President Eisgruber claims that one aspect in which the University
makes moral and political decisions is when we exercise direct authority or control or
have specific responsibilities, yet he also says the University has no direct authority or
control over the interests in which it invests, and it need not take political stands about
them in order to manage its endowment. On a number of levels, this thought process
seems both false and an abdication of responsibility for what is clearly influenced by the
University in very direct ways. First, we do have direct authority over at least some of our
investments: our direct holdings are controlled by PRINCO and currently have no formal
procedures to mitigate their environmental impacts. Andrew Golden also acknowledged
in his letter that PRINCO interacts with their asset managers and discusses their decisions
about certain companies and practices in an ethical light, which means that PRINCO
exercises at least some control over exactly where the Universitys endowment goes.
Second, the claim that the University can simply turn over its money to asset managers

and look the other way is an exceptionally flawed argument. Regardless of who chooses
exactly where that money goes at any moment in time, it is still the Universitys money.
It is still under our control. We are still responsible for the harms it causes. As long as we
continue to invest our money and profit from it, we should consider the endowment under
our direct control, even if asset managers play an intermediary role. Thus President
Eisgruber is simply wrong in saying that our choice to continue to turn a blind eye to how
our investments impact the world is not an ethical issue.
Procedural Issues
There are a number of issues that arise from President Eisgrubers letter, his
communication with Andrew Golden, and the Resources Committees response that are
beyond the scope of the language of the PSII proposal, but which we would like to briefly
address as well since they have affected the deliberations on our proposal. President
Eisgruber believes that we are a fair and unbiased forum for teaching and research,
including on environmental issues. A more thorough look at where we get our research
funding might illuminate details that would suggest otherwise, including that our
environmental institutes receive quite a lot of funding from leading fossil fuel companies.
How we determine what constitutes a fair and unbiased forum should perhaps be a
question for greater University discussion, rather than something that is unilaterally
decided by the President. We would also like to note that Andrew Goldens memo to
President Eisgruber fails to articulate with any real clarity or formality how PRINCO
incorporates environmental concerns in the investment process. To their credit, his memo
does list a series of instances where these issues have been discussed, yet there is no
sense of any guiding policies nor any formal process through which PRINCO
incorporates environmental concerns. There remains too little transparency to make an
adequately informed decision about whether PRINCOs existing practices are
satisfactory.
Additionally, the procedures of the Resources Committee itself have come under
greater scrutiny and merit a much larger discussion. It has come to light, particularly after
the CPUC meeting at the end of the last academic year, that the committee does not
actually have much of a process for responding to students. In fact, it does not even vote
and chooses to operate under a loose definition of consensus. Since it deliberates and
decides on such contentious issues, it seems illogical and unfair to determine its
responses in a way that has no transparency whatsoever and expects all parties in a
committee of ten individuals to agree on all matters. Additionally, PSII found it
particularly concerning that the Resources Committee found it appropriate to say Our
committee is willing to support this effort as you may see appropriate in their letter to
President Eisgruber. The expectation of the student body when they bring a proposal to
this committee is that they are dealing with a body capable of making decisions
independently of the rest of the administration and that they serve as an advisory body
that does not necessarily have to agree with the President. In this particular instance, at
least, that does not appear to have been the case. This also poses a problem when, as with
PSII, students have a long and thoughtful discussion with the Resources Committee, but
not the Universitys president, yet his view on their proposal is viewed as the definitive
one. Such a process does not lead to a genuine dialogue between students and the
administration. Finally, the guidelines that the Resources Committee and students who

bring proposals to them operate under are not, as President Eisgruber believes, well
described on your website. In fact, they remain ill-defined, with no list of core values,
no explanation of what consensus or sustained campus interest look like, and no
definitive requirement that a standard of disassociation is necessary. The process by
which concerns about investment are brought to the administration should be reevaluated
at a broader campus level.
We hope that this will be the start of a much longer and broader campus discussion about
sustainable investment practices, and we hope to see a reversal of the Universitys
decision on this matter in the near future.
Sincerely,
Princeton Sustainable Investment Initiative