Students revealed that Oxford University received at least £1.6 million from fossil fuel firms between 2020-2021, despite the world-renowned institution’s targets to combat climate change.
After a lengthy process, students from the Oxford Climate Justice Campaign (OCJC) found out how much money Oxford accepts in funding from unrenewable resources such as oil and gas, branding the accepting of this money as 'hypocritical and harmful' in a report.
The £1.6 million in donations came from BP, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies; Shell, a petrochemical company; Mitsubishi, a Japanese automobile manufacturer; and Eni SpA, an Italian multinational oil and gas company.
The university also received an additional £100 million from the world’s fourth largest chemical company, INEOS, in January 2021 which is being used to create an institute to fight antimicrobial resistance.
Questions about sustainability
Students from the OCJC branded the university 'hypocritical' for accepting funding from fossil fuel companies, as they felt it went against Oxford University’s Environmental Sustainability Strategy, announced in March last year.
This Strategy sets two targets, one to achieve net-zero carbon and the other to achieve biodiversity net gain, both by 2035.
A spokesperson for Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, Matilda Gettins, said: “It is disgraceful that the University is still accepting money from the fossil fuel industry. Behind a facade of “low-carbon” and “climate” promises, these companies continue to choke our atmosphere and launch new fossil fuel projects.
“By accepting their money, Oxford is helping BP, Shell and co conduct greenwashing, and make their destruction of people’s livelihoods and the planet socially acceptable. The University of Oxford must cut all its ties to this extractive industry.”
In the full outline of the University's Sustainability Strategy, the policy on accepting grants from fossil fuel companies is not specified.
However, a key part of the Sustainability Strategy is establishing the 'Oxford Sustainability Fund', which would make £200 million available for sustainability initiatives over the next 15 years.
A lack of transparency
Information on Oxford’s sources of funding was far from readily available, as Oxford PPE student Philip Hutchinson discovered when he submitted the Freedom of Information request (FOI) which revealed this information on funding.
The university responded to the 23-year-old's request late, and with information redacted.
The third year student highlighted that at Cambridge University this information is published openly, and wondered if this disparity at Oxford was due to fears of a ‘negative reaction’.
An FOI is enshrined in law, under the 2000 Act, which means public authorities such as universities must respond within 20 working days to a request for information under a set of conditions.
Oxford University responded to Philip Hutchinson, who submitted his FOI request in October 2021, in February 2022 after 74 working days and only after an internal review was submitted.
When the results were published, the exact figure of money donated by BP was not fully disclosed and instead the ballpark figure £20,000 to £98,000 was given.
Between £10,000-£49,000 of this was for STEM scholarships, with a further £10,000-£49,000 for research funding into ‘LSPI and Calcium’.
The exact figure was withheld as the university argued releasing the entire figure would “undermine its ability to secure future research funding from this source.”
Fergus Green, Climate Justice Campaigns coordinator at People & Planet, said: "The University of Oxford has tried hard to avoid scrutiny over its relationships with the fossil fuel industry, but this fantastic report from Oxford Climate Justice Campaign lays them bare.
“We all know that the big polluters aren’t spending this money for nothing, and it is shameful that the University continues to prop up the companies most responsible for the climate and ecological crisis. It must agree to the demands of students and sever all ties with the fossil fuel industry now."
'A year just like any other'
Fossil fuel companies providing millions in funding to Oxford University is not new.
The fossil fuel industry donated £19 million to Oxford University between 2015 and 2020, a separate OCJC report found.
In terms of what could bring about a change, Philip Hutchinson said: “Oxford as a brand has such a reputation that actually if it was willing to take a stand and say this is where we stand on climate change and we are not willing to keep legitimising the fossil fuel industry then I’m confident that would bring in other donors.
“They will see that actually that is an institution I want to be represented by.”
The aspiring history student from Derbyshire highlighted that although the money may go towards positive research, for example into alternative energy sources, the result doesn't make up for the method.
He used the example of how in 1998, vice-chancellors of UK universities such as Oxford decided they would no longer take money from cancer research from tobacco firms, and wonders how taking money from fossil fuel firms to study clean energy is any better.
He said: "To be honest, I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if’ Oxford will stop taking this money, it is a question of ‘when’. Of course, we want Oxford to make that decision sooner rather than later, because the sooner it does it the more time, we have to tackle this issue of climate change.”
“I would say that climate change is far worse than smoking. Fossil fuels contribute to more deaths every year than tobacco smoke even if we take climate change out of the picture.
“I’m confident that as time goes on it will continue to be more and more socially unacceptable for Oxford to take this money."
In terms of whether this changes his perspective of the university as a whole, Mr Hutchinson said it was 'complicated'.
He added: "Ultimately, the reason we’re doing this is because we love the institution, despite its flaws, we’re doing this because we want the institution to be the best that it can be and we believe that cutting these ties would enable the university to thrive and be a university that we can be even more proud of.
"So I guess even though there’s a lot that is very frustrating, I get angry, it doesn’t change the fact that it is my university and it is still a great privilege to study here.
"I’m just aware that with that privilege comes a responsibility to really help the world and make sure that oxford is using its resources to actually tackle these issues.”
Oxford University have been approached for a comment.
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