Mychalejko: Vanguard Group must stop financing the planet’s destruction

The Vanguard Group Inc. has a “Very Big Problem.”

The Malvern-based investment firm, the world’s second largest money manager with its over $7 trillion in global assets, profits from fossil fuel industries at the expense of the planet.

Vanguard is the largest global financier in coal with $86 billion in investments, and second largest in oil and gas. In fact, the firm is helping bankroll “12 of the most devastating fossil fuel projects” in the world, according to a recent report by Reclaim Finance.

While world leaders are meeting in Glasgow for the COP 26 climate talks, locally the Philadelphia-based Earth Quaker Action Team and other environmental activists are engaged in a direct action and divestment campaign against Vanguard until the company releases concrete plans to quickly transition away from coal, oil, and gas investments.

“Divestment’s core power is the way in which it acts as a tactic that changes collective understanding of the extractive industries,” said EQAT’s Eve Gutman. “It does have a material financial effect, but even more powerful is how it strips away the social license industries being divested from currently have.”

EQAT launched Vanguard’s “Very Big Problem” campaign in Philadelphia this spring. Most recently, on Oct. 29, EQAT tried to deliver a letter to Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley, but company security wouldn’t accept it.

They actually called the cops on these nonviolent activists.

Just to be clear, Vanguard isn't alone in shirking its ethical climate responsibilities. Other major financial institutions need to step up with their climate commitments too. And Vanguard has done a lot of good for folks planning for retirement. The company just needs to start worrying about what kind of world folks will be retiring in.

Gutman, 28, began her climate activism while a student at Haverford College with the school’s fossil fuel divestment campaign.

“Since then I have really believed in the power of moving money to tip the scales in making sure we have a livable future,” she said.

We’re now seeing a sea change with the climate movement's use of divestment. Bill McKibben, writing in the New York Times last month, noted that “the fossil fuel divestment campaign has reached new heights. Endowments, portfolios and pension funds worth just shy of $40 trillion have now committed to full or partial abstinence from coal, gas and oil stocks.”

So what’s with Vanguard?

Well, it has taken a strategic engagement approach by “advocating for good governance principles” with the fossil fuel companies they invest in.

These companies are liars. They have also “committed to supporting the goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or sooner.”

“Net Zero by 2050 is both too little and too late,” said EQAT’s Gutman.

It’s essentially magical thinking. It is the “notion that we can continue to burn fossil fuels if we can find a way to remove them just as quickly,” according to Michael E. Mann, distinguished professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at Penn State University.

Over 700 groups from nearly 100 countries also issued a statement this month revealing that “Net Zero targets are not a strategy for change. Net Zero targets are being used as a cover-up for business-as-usual.”

EQAT was actually born in 2009 out of a gathering of Quaker Friends who realized business-as-usual is just not going to cut it given the enormity of the climate crisis. I called my friend Jonathan Snipes, one of the group’s founding members, to provide some more background.

“We do training in nonviolent techniques, strategic thinking, and best political, social, and economic analyses. But for us to be truly effective we have to be grounded in spiritual practice,” the 61-year-old Morrisville resident told me.

Quaker values are at EQAT’s core. The Quaker testimonies of integrity, equality, simplicity, community, stewardship of the Earth, and peace provide the spiritual grounding and framework that guides Quakers living their faith. To put it another way, EQAT’s climate activism is a form of spiritual practice.

“There would also be a spiritual crisis if we know what is happening but we refuse to put our faith into action,” added Snipes.

But you don’t have to be a Quaker to join EQAT’s efforts. The group has members of all faiths (or atheist) and is multigenerational. In fact, local high school students can even join EQAT, or have their already existing environmental clubs partner on campaigns.

“The history of the U.S. is rich in nonviolent movements that made real change. But I think we often forget this history [or aren’t taught it] and we think that change is only made at the ballot box, or that only people in official positions of power can make changes,” Snipes said.

The campaign he helped launch in 2010 against PNC Bank actually successfully changed the bank’s investments with mountaintop removal coal mining in March 2015.

To find out how to be that “real change” visit https://www.eqat.org.

Cyril Mychalejko is a teacher and freelance writer from Bucks County. He can be reached at cmychalejko@gmail.com and at https://cyrilmychalejko.substack.com.

This article originally appeared on Bucks County Courier Times: Mychalejko: Vanguard Group must stop financing Earth’s destruction