Delighted to see that the CofE has finally chosen to (partially) divest from fossil fuels. But there’s a certain muteness re: mea culpa here. Bill McKibben puts it best in his newsletter today: “in the early weeks of the divestment campaign in 2012 I traveled to London, in part for a meeting with the CofE executives. They were…totally disdainful of the divestment campaign, insisting that their approach of ‘engaging’ with these companies would work.”

I have also experienced this disdainful attitude, which was not quietly held, but on quite public and triumphalistic display by leaders across a variety of events including the CofE presence at COP and a variety of policy workshops. To be fair, many activists have been actively challenging this attitude, but it has been entrenched for decades.

There is some really interesting work to be done here, analysing how this came to be, the (not small) impacts that this public display had across a variety of fora where these executives shared their “leadership” on sustainable investing and how resilient this position will be in light of future pressures.