Call for Baillie Gifford to divest from fossil fuels and profit from Israeli apartheid
Fossil Free books are a group inviting book workers everywhere to join 200+ signatories and sign our open letter renewing their call for Baillie Gifford to divest from the fossil fuel industry and from companies that profit from Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide.
In an Open Letter and invitation they say:
“To mark the 76th anniversary of the Nakba, we – writers, journalists, editors, illustrators, publishers, and festival and book workers – renew our demand to the asset manager Baillie Gifford, sponsor of Hay Festival, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Edinburgh International Books Festival, Cambridge Literary Festival, Stratford Literary Festival, Boswell Book Festival, Borders Book Festival, Wigtown Book Festival, Henley Literary Festival, Wimbledon BookFest, and The Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, to divest from the fossil fuel industry and from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide.”
“Baillie Gifford currently has between £2.5–£5bn invested in the fossil fuel industry[1] and nearly £10bn invested in companies with direct or indirect links to Israel’s defence, tech and cybersecurity industries, including Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet[2]. In December 2023, a coalition of civil society groups named Baillie Gifford a “top European investor in illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories”.[3]
“As university encampments around the world have pointed out, divestment is not abstract. Until the firm agrees to divest, we call on all literary organisations, including festivals, to end their relationships with Baillie Gifford. If our demand is not met, we reaffirm our commitment to take action through disruption and by withdrawing our labour.”
Read the full Open Letter HERE.
Or go HERE to sign the letter.
- The Ferret and Investigating Climate Chaos. ↩
- Arts Workers for Palestine Scotland. ↩
- Don’t Buy Into Occupation report, “European Financial Institutions’ Continued Complicity in the Illegal Israeli Settlement Enterprise”. ↩
- Al Jazeera, Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live tracker. ↩
- Oxfam, “Daily death rate in Gaza higher than any other major 21st Century conflict”. ↩
- Statement from Omar Robert Hamilton, co-founder and current director of PalFest . ↩
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