Climate Action Pursuit 2021

During our June milestone, workshop speaker Dr. Davarian Baldwin called on us to reimagine campuses as community spaces to serve all community members, in response to the increasingly parasitic relationship between universities and local communities as a result of unchecked institutional power. To do so, each of us working in higher education will need to look beyond our campus gates to listen, engage, and give power to grassroots and community voices in the decisions that impact their lives. Taking examples from different investment contexts, this panel will present approaches to decision-making that shift power dynamics that work for communities. It will cover different relationship models between community leaders and institutions (like investors) and examples where investor activity has been aligned with movement leaders, such as grassroots campaigns to influence investments, shared decision making in place-based investments, and coordination with movements within investor-led actions. Please join us for a conversation about how power dynamics in decision making can be shifted whether you are making an investment decision or coming up with a plan to reduce carbon emissions.