The University of Manchester has announced that it will end investments in fossil fuel reserve and extraction companies by 2022, and ‘decarbonise’ all investments by 2038.

The changes to the University’s Socially Responsible Investment Policy go further than other fossil fuel divestment programmes as they include a commitment to reduce the carbon intensity of the overall investment portfolio by 30% by 2022, and then to move as quickly as possible to net zero by, at latest, 2038.

The changes to the Policy have been agreed after a wide consultation with staff, students and alumni earlier in the year which attracted nearly 600 responses. The Policy was developed in consultation with the University’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and the Students’ Union.