Start campaigning for clean investment in your university

Getting an ethical investment campaign going involves just a few simple steps, and we are here to provide you with some resources and guidance. Remember, your campaign may need to run for months or years to achieve disinvestment and the adoption of stringent ethical investment policies - for example, CAAT's general Clean Investment campaign has been running since 1991, and since then a number of church bodies, universities, charities and health organisations disinvesting from arms companies after being contacted and lobbied by campaigners. The sooner you start and the more people you get involved the more likely it is that your university will listen!

Universities where there are active campaigns or people planning work include:

Please let us know if your university has a campaign running, or if you would like us to pass your details on to campaigners in your university.

Below we have outlined the most common arms company investment situations each of the universities are in, and provided an outline of a letter that you can send to the financial decision makers at your university. Any request for information is now treated as being covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2000, so you don't have to specifically mention this unless you feel it is necessary.

Take action!
The more people you can get to write letters and send emails, the louder your voice will be and all the harder to ignore! When you receive a response, keep up the correspondence - whether you are asking for disinvestment or the adoption of an ethical investment policy, keep up the pressure until you succeed. If you need any assistance please don't hesitate to contact us.

If you haven't already checked to see the share holding figures for your university, it is best to do so now to make sure you are reading the right information to kick off your campaign [more].

If your university has confirmed shares in some or all of the arms companies
If your university has 'YES' for some or all of the arms companies
If your university has '?' for some or all of the arms companies
If your university has '0' for all of the arms companies

Universities with confirmed shares in arms companies

If there are figures displayed for your university, this means that we have confirmed your university's investments - either from the financial managers of your university, or from Companies House shareholder lists. The vast majority of these have been provided to us over the course of 2005, but a few might reflect investments from 2003/4 as some universities have yet to respond this year.

A good first step is to confirm the shareholding figures, as there may have been changes since they were obtained - please do let us know if there have been changes. Your campaign will then aim to ask the financial manager to sell any shares held in arms exporting companies and to institute an ethical investment policy that will exclude these from being bought in the future.

Below is an outline of a letter you could adapt and send to your financial director - either by post or email - please forward any response you receive to us, so that we know how your campaign is going.

Example letter to university with confirmed shares in arms companies

Dear

Campaign Against Arms Trade recently released figures on university investments in the arms trade (specifically BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, GKN, Smiths Group, Cobham and VT Group), and I am very disappointed to see that the figures show our university holds investments in the arms trade. I would appreciate it if you could confirm to me that these figures are correct.

I am particularly concerned about these investments because the UK arms industry exports billions of pounds worth of weapons every year, many of these to regimes with poor human rights records, to areas of conflict or to countries with huge development needs. The arms trade fuels war, undermines development and breeds corruption and is far from an ordinary, everyday business. Our university should not hold shares in the arms trade - it is inappropriate for an institution run for the public good to have any links to this deadly business.

I would wholeheartedly encourage the university to adopt an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade, and would appreciate it if you could tell me if this is something that the university is planning to do.

Yours sincerely,

Universities with YES

If there is a 'YES' instead of figures, this means that your university has responded to us, providing us with a list of funds and/or portfolio statements (a list of the companies that the fund invests in) - or we have managed to find out the underlying share holdings ourselves. For example, if the funds are all FTSE trackers (an investment vehicle that buys shares in all companies listed on the London Stock Exchange), this means that they will contain arms trade investments as the companies we focus on are all listed. We have only been able to find specific information on very few funds, and would really appreciate any more details you find out on these!

A good first step is to confirm the shareholding figures, as there may have been changes since they were obtained - please do let us know if there have been changes. Your campaign will then aim to ask the financial manager to sell any shares held in arms exporting companies and to institute an ethical investment policy that will exclude these from being bought in the future.

Below is an outline of a letter you could adapt and send to your financial director - either by post or email - please forward any response you receive to us, so that we know how your campaign is going.

Example letter to university with YES

Dear

Campaign Against Arms Trade recently released figures on university investments in the arms trade (specifically BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, GKN, Smiths Group, Cobham and VT Group), and I am very disappointed to see that the figures show our university holds investments in the arms trade. I would appreciate it if you could confirm to me that the details are correct.

I am particularly concerned about these investments because the UK arms industry exports billions of pounds worth of weapons every year, many of these to regimes with poor human rights records, to areas of conflict or to countries with huge development needs. The arms trade fuels war, undermines development and breeds corruption and is far from an ordinary, everyday business. Our university should not hold shares in the arms trade - it is inappropriate for an institution run for the public good to have any links to this deadly business.

Please send me a portfolio statement for the fund(s) our university has investments in. If you do not have a copy of this, please send me a list of the names of the fund(s) and the corresponding management companies.

I would wholeheartedly encourage the university to adopt an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade, and would appreciate it if you could tell me if this is something that the university is planning to do?

Yours sincerely,

Universities with question marks

If there is a question mark instead of figures, this means that your university either hasn't responded yet this year or have been unable to provide us with clear information on the companies that they hold shares in. The latter can happen if they have their money pooled with a lot of other organisations into an externally managed fund, but have not obtained a list of the companies the fund invests in.

A good first step is to confirm the shareholding figures, as there may have been changes since they were obtained - please do let us know if there have been changes. Your campaign will then aim to find out further details on the companies included in the fund(s) that they invest in - either from the universities financial manager or from the fund management company, once you have found this out. Even if you cannot find out anything more definite regarding shareholdings, you can lobby your financial manager to institute an ethical investment policy that will exclude these from being bought in the future.

Below is an outline of a letter you could adapt and send to your financial director - either by post or email - please forward any response you receive to us, so that we know how your campaign is going.

Example letter to university with question marks

Dear

Campaign Against Arms Trade recently released figures on university investments in the arms trade (specifically BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, GKN, Smiths Group, Cobham and VT Group), but figures for our university are unclear and I would like to find out more.

If the university's investments are held in a pooled fund or a variety of these funds please could you provide me with recent, dated, lists of the underlying shares that the fund(s) invests in.

If you do not have a portfolio statement for the fund(s), please send me a list of the names of the fund(s) and the corresponding management companies.

I would wholeheartedly encourage the university to adopt an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade, and would appreciate it if you could tell me if this is something that the university is planning to do?

Yours sincerely,

Universities with zero shares

If your university owns no shares in the six top arms exporting companies in our current figures, this is obviously good news, but it would be helpful if you could ask if they have an ethical investment policy. Many universities have told us that they don't have these shares this year, and in some cases have no shares at all, but have not indicated that they have an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade. This means that next year shares in any of these companies could be bought by your university, unless you make clear your views on this.

A good first step is to confirm the shareholding figures, as there may have been changes since they were obtained - please do let us know if there have been changes. You will also need to ask if an ethical investment policy exists or if one will be adopted. If your university does not have an ethical investment policy that excludes the arms trade, you may want to start a campaign for one to be instituted.

Below is an outline of a letter you could adapt and send to your financial director - either by post or email - please forward any response you receive to us, so that we know how your campaign is going.

Example letter to university with no shares

Dear

Campaign Against Arms Trade recently released figures on university investments in the arms trade (specifically BAE Systems, Rolls Royce, GKN, Smiths Group, Cobham and VT Group), and I was pleased to see that our university was listed as holding no shares.

I would like to confirm that no shares are held in the above companies as part of a pension fund or endowment, either directly or indirectly through an externally managed fund.

I would fully support our university having an ethical investment policy that excludes investments in the arms trade. After seeing the figures I was wondering if you could confirm that such a policy exists for our university, and if so please could you send a copy to me?

Yours sincerely,

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Campaign Against Arms Trade, 11 Goodwin St, Finsbury Park, London N4 3HQ
Tel: +44 (0)20 7281 0297 | Fax: +44 (0)20 7281 4369