As

you all know the UMass Divest

campaign has expressed their appreciation
for this Boards recently adopted policy on
divestment but they continue to advocate
for further action, including the immediate
full divestment from the top 200 fossil fuels
companies by the close of business on April
13, 2016; they also seek the establishment
of a Socially Responsible Reinvestment
Committee that would include voting
members of the Divest UMass campaign,
the reinvestment of a minimum of 5% of
invested funds into a Financial Cooperative
offered by the Working World or into other
companies which they believe are better
aligned with a socially responsible and
sustainable economy, and there are other
components of their demands.

The Divest UMass campaign has
stated that they dont believe that our
actions to date have demonstrated a full

acknowledgement of the urgency of the

crisis, and they have increased their
activities to include more public protests,
the production and distribution of videos
and occupation of the Whitmore
Administrative building on the Amherst
campus.

UMass has a long, deep and
documented commitment to the
environment and the use of its resources in
a manner thats compatible with being a
socially responsible and sustainable
citizen. All five campuses have signed the
American College & University Presidents
Climate Commitment and in the years since,
the university has reduced its carbon
emissions by 17%. The university has
invested significant resources in capital
improvements which have been designed
and built to maximize the sustainability of
resources; investments like the

Massachusetts Green High Performance

Computing Center, the replacement of
UMass Dartmouths heat and power
systems, weve instituted a sustainability
curriculum Initiative on the Amherst
campus and weve entered into 15 separate
solar net excess generation contracts with
10 different solar developers totaling 50
MW of new solar capacity. When all of
these are fully operational we expect to
generate 1.123 billion kWh over the first 20years of their life which will help to avoid
28,532 metric tons of CO2 in the first full
year of operation, or approximately
544,300 metric tons of CO2 through the
project supported by UMass, and virtually
every new building has been constructed in
a manner sensitive to environment
concerns.

UMass efforts include a
comprehensive Energy Master Plan,

research grants and academic programs

related to offshore wind energy, certificate
programs in green energy and climate
change, storm water management, green
infrastructure, the acquisition of hybrid
buses resulted in a 40% reduction in fuel
consumption, installation of electric car
charging stations, water reclamation
projects and many other concrete actions
with a direct and immediate impact on
climate change.

Last Wednesday when I had the
opportunity to speak to Dr. Figueres my
questions werent about environmental
science or the extremely challenging and
lengthy process of negotiations leading to
the Paris climate agreement, but about how
we make it relevant and important to each
global citizen to work toward these climate
goals. Her response was that we needed to
make climate change a business imperative

through the development of alternative

energy sources. It was about constructive
collaboration and de-politicization of the
subject. She said that America, Canada and
Australia were the countries who politicized
this subject the most resulting in
polarization and inactivity in solving the
climate imperative, while China and other
less developed nations intuitively
understand the urgent need to create
economic models and businesses that
promote disincentives for the continued
use of fossil fuels.

Although I dont want to suggest
that Dr. Figueres doesnt support
divestment efforts, her response was
insightful, and I agree with her that we
need to urgently move from contentious
discourse to the creation of practical
disruptive industries that will quickly
change the existing energy paradigm, and I

hope we can all work together toward that

end.