Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Aug 10, 2023 / 12:45 pm
A Catholic university in the state of Washington recently announced its full divestment from holdings in fossil fuel concerns, a decision one of the school’s leaders says came about as part of a “moral imperative to action” stemming from Catholic teachings.
Seattle University, a Jesuit-run school near the city’s downtown, said last month that it had fully “scrubbed its endowment portfolio of fossil fuel investments,” with the school touting itself as “the first university in Washington state and the first Jesuit Catholic university in the country” to do so.
The school’s board of trustees in 2018 “became the first Jesuit university in the country to pledge 100% withdrawal from publicly traded fossil fuel investments,” with the school claiming the divestment measure was part of a broader effort at “building a sustainable community that supports human and ecological health, social justice, and economic well-being.”
Father Bob Grimm, a counselor and professor in the university’s Albers School of Business and Economics as well as a member of the trustee board, told CNA that the process of disentangling fossil fuels from the school’s investment portfolio was “quite challenging” and ended up being a six-year process.