Oil Company Advisor Named to Stanford Committee Reviewing Oil and Gas Divestment
Students call out #ConflictOfInterest.
February 3, 2025
Press Contact:
Yari Greaney, Administration Liaison // 530.646.9118 // [email protected]
Sophie Harrison, Media Coordinator // 650.862.3326 // [email protected]
Yari Greaney, Administration Liaison // 530.646.9118 // [email protected]
Sophie Harrison, Media Coordinator // 650.862.3326 // [email protected]
UPDATE: Professor Mark Zoback has removed himself from the APIR-L, in response to student pressure about his conflict of interest. Fossil Free Stanford’s march was nevertheless conducted, calling for further transparency and accountability for the APIR-L process and for divestment from the oil and gas industry.
Photo by Nick Salazar
STANFORD, CA -- The Stanford University investment review panel that recommended coal divestment last spring pledged to follow that decision by reviewing oil and gas stocks. Now, a faculty member who serves as a senior oil company advisor has been named to the panel.
Students are claiming that the review process for further fossil fuel divestment is stalled and duplicitous, and that the recent appointment to the investment review committee has a severe conflict of interest.
The latest addition to the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing (APIR-L) Environmental Subcommittee, replacing an economist who studies climate impacts, is Professor Mark Zoback. Dr. Zoback is the Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative, and Senior Advisor at Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oilfield services companies.
Charged with upholding Stanford’s policy on investment responsibility, the APIR-L has been meeting intermittently with the Fossil Free Stanford campaign over the past two years. It was the APIR-L that recommended coal divestment last year, a move applauded by the student campaign. But the panel has seen significant turnover since then.
In fact, none of the members on the current Environmental Subcommittee, which is reviewing oil and gas divestment, were in the room for Fossil Free Stanford’s presentation to the panel less than three months ago.
“The APIR-L has been hard to work with all year. For a university with such a wealth of resources, it is shockingly poorly managed,” said Yari Greaney, administration liaison for Fossil Free Stanford. “And appointing a petroleum engineer and well-known fracking proponent to the subcommittee feels almost like the administration is stacking the deck against us.”
The APIR-L is managed by the Stanford Management Company, who manage Stanford’s investments and took out new oil and gas holdings earlier this year.
“Our university was founded to ‘promote the public welfare,’ and aims to enable its students to achieve the brightest possible future,” said Sijo Smith, freshman and organizer with Fossil Free Stanford. “Yet, Stanford is concurrently expanding investments in the oil and gas industry. The financial success of our endowment is dependent upon the destruction of the very future in which current Stanford students will be living and using their degrees. That’s the biggest conflict of interest of all.”
Fossil Free Stanford will be gathering at Stanford President John Hennessy’s office this Wednesday at noon, and marching through campus tomorrow to deliver this message to a reticent administration.
Students are claiming that the review process for further fossil fuel divestment is stalled and duplicitous, and that the recent appointment to the investment review committee has a severe conflict of interest.
The latest addition to the Advisory Panel on Investment Responsibility and Licensing (APIR-L) Environmental Subcommittee, replacing an economist who studies climate impacts, is Professor Mark Zoback. Dr. Zoback is the Director of the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative, and Senior Advisor at Baker Hughes, one of the world’s largest oilfield services companies.
Charged with upholding Stanford’s policy on investment responsibility, the APIR-L has been meeting intermittently with the Fossil Free Stanford campaign over the past two years. It was the APIR-L that recommended coal divestment last year, a move applauded by the student campaign. But the panel has seen significant turnover since then.
In fact, none of the members on the current Environmental Subcommittee, which is reviewing oil and gas divestment, were in the room for Fossil Free Stanford’s presentation to the panel less than three months ago.
“The APIR-L has been hard to work with all year. For a university with such a wealth of resources, it is shockingly poorly managed,” said Yari Greaney, administration liaison for Fossil Free Stanford. “And appointing a petroleum engineer and well-known fracking proponent to the subcommittee feels almost like the administration is stacking the deck against us.”
The APIR-L is managed by the Stanford Management Company, who manage Stanford’s investments and took out new oil and gas holdings earlier this year.
“Our university was founded to ‘promote the public welfare,’ and aims to enable its students to achieve the brightest possible future,” said Sijo Smith, freshman and organizer with Fossil Free Stanford. “Yet, Stanford is concurrently expanding investments in the oil and gas industry. The financial success of our endowment is dependent upon the destruction of the very future in which current Stanford students will be living and using their degrees. That’s the biggest conflict of interest of all.”
Fossil Free Stanford will be gathering at Stanford President John Hennessy’s office this Wednesday at noon, and marching through campus tomorrow to deliver this message to a reticent administration.
