What is the Ethical and Sustainable Investments Forum?
The Ethical and Sustainable Investments Forum is a regular meeting where staff, students and representatives meet. It new space we started on the basis of student feedback in 2024. The forum facilitates discussion around topics of ethical investments and sustainability between the university and students facilitated by the SU. In the forum students to share their thoughts, raise important concerns and to enable us to work together to listen, act and resonate more with all students.
Why was it created?
Our student community cares deeply about how the University and Students’ Union manage their investments and partnerships, especially in relation to ethical and environmental practices, alongside how we tackle wider issues relating to sustainability. Recent years have seen the Students’ Union’s All Student Meetings pass several motions on themes relating to financial investments, as well as ethical and environmental concerns. Furthermore, students in recent years have explored alternative ways of making their voice heard through submitting open letters and participating in protests and an encampment on campus.
We want to listen and act more, so in line with our Students’ Union 2030 Strategy, we created this forum as a space to create change together.
What does the forum discuss?
The Forum has a distinct focus, on Ethical Investments and Sustainability issues, the discussions will centre around these topics, for example:
- Ethical investments
- Sustainability strategies
- Student motions and ideas submitted via the All Student Meeting that encompass ethical and environmental concerns.
However, this is not an exhaustive list! We want the forum to be students led, with motions and student ideas shaping the forum’s discussions. If you wanted something specific to be changed or discuss, put it forward in a motion for All Student Meeting or raise it with one of your representatives.
Also, it’s important to note that in this forum we’ll also define “investments” as going beyond just the immediate financial matters. It’s also about the various investments made within our community. First, it acknowledges the financial commitment you make when choosing to study at Queen Mary, and where that money goes. Secondly, it is about the university’s investment in your education, particularly around topics like sustainability and ethics. And it’s ultimately about our collective investment in making the world a better place for all of us.
How can students join the forum this academic year or even have your voice heard?
We want students to share the opinions, as this forum was built on students sharing their voices with us!
There are multiple ways to have your voice represented in the forum, for example you could become one of our student members of the forum, the next round of applications will open in January, and we will share more details soon.
If you didn’t want to commit to sitting on the forum, you can also share any thoughts and feedback to the executive officers who sit on the forum and can represent your voice in this space. There is also three of our student representatives who sit on this space too. (when elected can share their emails etc)
The Forum was created, in part, as a response to policies put forward by our student body, if there was a specific change you wanted to see the union or university take, you can put forward a policy to our next All Student Meeting.
Are the meeting dates scheduled, if so when?
Meetings are held throughout the academic year, aiming for every 6-8 weeks.
Minutes of the meetings will be shared below.
What have you done so far?
We have begun facilitating important conversations around the university’s ethical investments policy, we have met with university investors, to gather a deeper understanding of investments the university are making.
We have also updated as an SU on student policies on topics such as Sustainability.