Without Action, the new Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability will remain entangled with Big Oil.

 
 

Our Demands

As scientists and students at the Doerr School of Sustainability, we are calling on Stanford leaders to decline funding to the School from fossil fuel companies.

Specifically, we are asking Doerr School leadership to: 

  1. Commit to an open and transparent process for industry-funded research. This process should be transparent and based on quantifiable, Paris-aligned criteria. Research has shown that none of our current fossil fuel partners are Paris-aligned.

  2. Commit to enforcing the criteria once they are published, and

  3. Phase out funding from industry partners that do not meet the criteria. 

Read our full Fossil Fuel Dissociation Brief

 

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Stay up-to-date on our efforts and on fossil fuel entanglement at Stanford

Take Action

  •  This recent CFERE report suggests that fossil fuel funding may continue at the Doerr School of Sustainability. CFERE is discussing public feedback on this at their September 23 meeting. This is our chance to speak up and make sure our voices are heard loud and clear!

    Click here for a comment template

  • We'll continue to update our list of signatories.

    Sign here

  • Send us an email at fffreestanford@gmail.com and we'll add you to our Slack workspace!

Why we care

Accepting fossil fuel money will undercut swift climate action and harm the Doerr School itself by:

  • Fossil fuel companies continue to look for new oil and gas fields to exploit - efforts which are on their face incompatible with reaching targets for a sustainable future - and they use Stanford research to help them do this

  • Fossil fuel money pushes research towards climate “solutions” that are non-threatening to fossil fuel companies, and which delay or detract from real solutions

  • Stanford affiliation helps fuel companies foster the misleading narrative that they are working in good faith toward a real energy transition

  • Stanford affiliation helps fossil fuel companies bolster their lobbying efforts in policy circles, while they work to block policy that promotes swift climate action

  • Partnering with fossil fuel companies risks the school’s real and perceived academic integrity and independence, as well as its reputation in the eyes of students, faculty, policymakers, and the public

“[At the Doerr School,] [we] have the responsibility to examine and ensure that our partnerships align with our values, vision, and ambition. We are, therefore, confronted by the ethical question of how we identify external organizations and how we should partner with them in research and educational collaborations. At the heart of the issue are key questions: What are our values? What are our goals and ambitions?”

”

— Arun Majumdar, incoming dean of the Doerr School of Sustainability,

May 25 2022