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Hundreds of high profile signatories, including Sally Rooney, George Monbiot, and Jonathon Porritt, call on asset manager and arts sponsor to divest from fossil fuels
More than 200 writers, journalists, illustrators, publishers, and booksellers have called on asset management giant Baillie Gifford - the sponsor of the Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, and Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction - to divest from the fossil fuel industry.
Backed by signatories including authors Sally Rooney, George Monbiot, Naomi Klein, Jonathon Porritt, and Putlizer-prize winning poet Natalie Diaz, the Fossil Free Books' statement also calls on Baillie Gifford to divest from all companies involved in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
The statement - which follows a similar intervention last year - claims the investment firm boasts fossil fuel assets worth between £2.5bn and £5bn.
According to reporting by The Ferret and research by German environmental and human rights NGO Urgewald, as of January 2023 Baillie Gifford held shares worth $524m in fossil fuel giant Shell, $267m in Norwegian oil company and Rosebank oil field majority stakeholder Equinor, $77m in the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, $726m in Brazilian oil company Petrobras, and $911m in Japanese coal company Reliance Industries.
"Institutional investors far bigger than Baillie Gifford, such as the Norwegian Government Pension Fund Global, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, are already divesting," Fossil Free Books' statement said.
"We make these demands in the spirit of a just transition, a process of creating work for all - including work in literature - which does not depend on the profits of colonialism and environmental destruction. We know this will take work. It is work we are committed to, and we are calling on everyone to join us."
Baillie Gifford is one of the UK's biggest supporters of cultural events, sponsoring 10 UK festivals, a major non-fiction prize, and the National Galleries of Scotland and the Scottish Ballet.
However, its continued investment in fossil fuel assets has become a target for environmental campaigners. Last year, more than 150 authors and book workers including Greta Thunberg, Ali Smith, and Gary Younge signed statements calling on Edinburgh International Book Festival to cut ties with the sponsor unless it divests fossil fuels. Thunberg later refused to attend the 2023 Edinburgh International Books Festival.
A further 150 authors including Rebcca Solnit, Emma Dabri, and George Monbiot signed a second statement calling on Cheltenham Literature Festival to demand Baillie Gifford divest from the fossil fuel industry before the end of 2023.
Edinburgh-based art gallery Collective withdrew from its funding agreement with Baillie Gifford in March 2024 following artists' concerns about its investments.
However, Fossil Free Books' said Baillie Gifford sponsored events still include the Edinburgh International Books Festival, Cambridge Literary Festival, Stratford Literary Festival, Boswell Book Festival, Borders Book Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, Henley Literary Festival, and Wimbledon BookFest.
"Literary festivals rely on the labour of writers, editors and translators," said author and professor of climate justice Naomi Klein. "We donate our labour because we love to gather and meet our readers, but we have the right to demand that these gatherings divest from the forces causing death and destruction on an unfathomable scale. The literary community must do better."
A spokesperson for Baillie Gifford told BusinessGreen the suggestion the firm is a large investor in the Occupied Palestinian Territories was "seriously misleading". They added that the firm is not a "significant" fossil fuel investor.
"Only two per cent of our clients' money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels," they said. "This compares to the market average of 11 per cent. Of those companies, some have already moved most of their business away from fossil fuels, and many are helping to drive the transition to clean energy.
"We are a private business managing other people's money, not our own. In our highly regulated industry, there are some absolute ethical boundaries we follow, as do all UK asset managers. These relate to national laws, regulations, and sanctions. When it comes to subjective ethical situations relating to sectors, such as fossil fuels, or countries, such as Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, our clients set the parameters and determine what to exclude or divest.
"We are not able to make exclusions of that nature based on our own ethical judgements, or in response to pressure from outside groups. Our fiduciary duty to the people or organisations who control the money we manage, is always our overriding priority. Therefore, in asking for divestment the activists are requesting that we breach our duty to our clients."
They added that Baillie Gifford is a long-standing supporter of literature and the arts. "This support is driven by our contention that we should contribute to the communities in which we operate, in the hope that the organisations we work with gain lasting benefits," they said.
Fossil Free Books' statement comes after the 15th annual Banking on Climate Chaos study revealed that the world's 60 largest private banks have provided just shy of $7tr in funding to the fossil fuel industry since 196 nations signed the Paris Agreement - with $705.8bn of investments confirmed in 2023 alone.
Though annual fossil fuel investment from the banking sector has fallen by around $250bn since a 2019 peak of more than $955bn, the report revealed lending and underwriting activity supported more than 4,200 fossil fuel firms last year.
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