Selwyn criticizes ‘nonsense’ climate chart, taking last place in the ranking

Selwyn College has named Cambridge colleges’ climate policy table as “complete nonsense” after being placed bottom.

In Cambridge 2024, every university scored below 50%. rankings Climate League at Oxford and Cambridge (CLOC), which prompted student activists for the university to “tighten up” their climate policy.

Selwyn ranked lowest of the 31 colleges with 6.9%, followed by Peterhouse (9.5%) and Trinity (10.3%).

Jesus received the highest score (48.8%) and was praised for pursuing a “comprehensive” emissions reduction policy, eliminating all direct investment in fossil fuels and sourcing all electricity from renewable sources from 2018 to 2022.

Universities were assessed on their decarbonization policies, fossil fuel investments and partnerships, and climate governance. Five Oxbridge researchers advised on the findings of the CLOC project.

Selwyn received low marks for its efforts to “decouple” from fossil fuels, mentioning that it works with Barclays, “one of the largest fossil fuel financiers in the world.”

CLOC also mentioned that Selwyn has no publicly available donation policy, decarbonization strategy or net zero target, only a “vague” sustainability strategy.

said one Selwyn environmental science student Varsity that these findings constitute “a sharp indictment of the university’s climate policy.” “Cambridge’s universities are ideally placed to lead on sustainability, but they must be clear, transparent and effective in their policies to mitigate further harm to our planet,” they said.

The student also claimed the college “underestimated the significant changes it could make to mitigate its climate impact”, referring to heating cuts in Selwyn last year, which the college said were made for sustainability reasons.

During cuts, the university he thanked students for buying tank tops and hats to keep warm.

However, Selwyn’s spokesman said Varsity stating that the table is “complete nonsense”, claiming that the College was “one of the pioneers in phasing out fossil fuels because found By Varsity. We have not accepted any donations from fossil fuel companies.”

“We installed more this summer solar panels on the roof of one of our buildings, saving 22,000 kg of CO2 per year. We are pioneers of ground source heat pumps for our customers renovated student accommodation. We won the University of Cambridge Green Impact award, which is one of many things that was clearly ignored in this study,” they continued.

Peterhouse, second in the table, and Trinity, third, were also fined for conducting banking business with Barclays.

– said one of the Trinity students Varsity that they were “surprised and disappointed” by Trinity’s result, saying the university “prides itself on net zero targets” but “needs to be much better at being transparent” about its climate policy.

Will Beattie, CLOC representative, said: “CLOC encourages universities to engage more openly with their students. This is achieved by identifying areas where universities can improve their sustainability policies and transparency. The results show that we still have a long way to go, but we hope that CLOC will provide universities with the motivation to continue their efforts.”

A member of Cambridge Climate Justice (CCJ), a student activist group, said: “CLOC is helpful because it clearly shows where universities need to step up their sustainability policies. We have recently had success in pushing the university to take climate action, but more action is urgently needed and we will continue to speak out about it, using CLOC as evidence of our support.”

This was announced by a spokesman for Trinity College Varsity: “Trinity College Cambridge is committed to improving its sustainability, both in terms of investment and assets. The College is divesting itself of all fossil fuel exposure in public equities as part of its commitment to achieve net zero by 2050. We have completed mapping our investment portfolio against greenhouse gas emissions to create a benchmark and set targets for both direct and indirect issues and we continue to actively cooperate with companies in which we hold shares.

They added: “Recognizing that more needs to be done, the College’s Heating Systems Working Group has set ambitious targets and action is underway to achieve them, which will significantly reduce Trinity’s carbon footprint.”

The University of Cambridge and Peterhouse College have been contacted for comment.