We are organising as workers for a books industry free from fossil fuels & fossil fuel finance. Link to sign our statement.

fossilfreebooks@gmail.com

Join us in calling on Baillie Gifford to divest from fossil fuels

To keep global warming below the critical 1.5°C – and so secure a liveable future – investment in new oil, coal, and gas projects must stop immediately. [1] 

Baillie Gifford currently has up to £5bn invested in the fossil fuel industry [2], including the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Petrobras [3].

CNOOC is a shareholder in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is already displacing people from their homes in Uganda and, if it goes ahead, will be the world’s largest heated crude oil pipeline [4]. Petrobras is one of the top 10 companies for projected fossil fuel development and exploration this decade [5]. These investments are funding destruction and harm in very real terms.

Baillie Gifford are key sponsors of Borders Book Festival, Boswell Book Festival, Bradford Literature Festival, Cambridge Literary Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Hay Festival, Henley Literary Festival, Stratford Literary Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, Wimbledon BookFest, and The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction.

These festivals often platform vital conversations and concerns about the urgency of the climate crisis. To address the material reality behind these conversations, we cannot allow fossil fuel investments to fund these events.

In August, at the start of the Edinburgh International Books Festival, hundreds of authors came together to ask Baillie Gifford to divest from fossil fuels. Now, as Fossil Free Books, we are urging  all UK literature festivals currently receiving sponsorship from Baillie Gifford to call on Baillie Gifford to divest. 

Please join our campaign: we need writers, editors, publishers, agents, festival staff – and everyone else across the literary community – to band together. We speak as workers in the literary industry, and make this call in the spirit of a Just Transition that protects the jobs and livelihoods of all workers.

We stand in solidarity with the millions of people in the Global South who have lost homes, livelihoods, and loved ones as a result of climate change; the people in the UK affected by flooding, air pollution, and heat waves; and with the countless non-human species being driven to extinction.

Baillie Gifford must divest. 

More info here.

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