Bristol Green Group Campaigns

Green Group Press Release - 2nd December 1999

As part of Ethics for USS action week, Bristol students Green Group urged lecturers to support the campaign to clean up the ethics of the university pension fund. Lecturers were lobbied on their lunchbreak outside the Hawthorns last Friday, while members of the group chatted to them about just exactly where their money goes. Currently, the USS (Universities Superannuation Scheme) owns shares of £48 million in British Aerospace, who recently sold Hawk jets to Indonesia, £77 million in British American Tobacco, a company which markets cigarettes to people in third world using tactics outlawed in this country.

Although these multinational corporations can seem so powerful as to be untouchable, most lecturers seemed to be aware of the campaign, and reacted positively to the suggestion that they might be able to help change. "People don't realise the influence they have over the companies or the pension scheme. We are trying to make them realise", said Cathrin Lange, a first year engineering student, and member of Green Group. Gilli Bernadt, a first year geographer added that the whole campaign is "about awareness raising, but lots of lecturers already know about it so it seems to be going well".

Ethics for USS is a campaign set up to persuade the university pension scheme to develop and implement a comprehensive ethical and environmental investment policy such that the pension fund is invested in a manner consistent with the values of university staff.

See www.dundee.ac.uk/accountancy/csear/ethics4uss
Email ethics4uss@acc.dundee.ac.uk
For more information contact Elinor Ní Chatháin, nichatha@cs.bris.ac.uk