University of Iowa faculty demand TIAA accountability
- The Gazette
- 03 June 2021
Retirement system is largest manager of farmland in the world - that contributes to land-grabbing, deforestation and human rights violations
Retirement system is largest manager of farmland in the world - that contributes to land-grabbing, deforestation and human rights violations
Carbon credits and net-zero pledges are fuelling a new round of farmland buying by billionaires and pension funds that will undermine real climate action.
The University of Iowa Faculty Senate voted 42 to 7 to pass a resolution calling on the university to hold the financial services provider TIAA accountable for its investments in global farmland.
The TIAA-Divest! campaign demands that TIAA "stop land grabs," as TIAA is one of the two largest foreign buyers in Brazil and many of its landholdings lead to displacement of local communities and deforestation.
Resolution adopted by the Professional Staff Congress, a union that represents 30,000 faculty and staff at the City University of New York and the CUNY Research Foundation.
Nuveen's head of sustainability will support Westchester's response to rising investor demand for carbon neutral portfolios, providing scalable, natural solutions to counter climate change through farmland investments.
Resolution by Cornell's University Assembly also calls on its main pension fund supplier to divest from agribusiness companies associated with deforestation, indigenous rights violations, and severe climate impacts.
Global commodities giant Cargill continues to buy soybeans from a farm in Brazil that cultivates on illegally acquired and deforested land, including lands acquired by US teachers’ pension fund TIAA.
The United University Professions' resolution calls for an end to TIAA landholdings “associated with deforestation and human rights abuses".
A technical report by Brazil’s land reform agency INCRA has deemed TIAA’s land titles in Brazil to be legally null and void.
O INCRA e o Tribunal de Justiça da Bahia reconheceram que o fundo de pensão da empresa estadunidense TIAA e o fundo de investimentos da Universidade de Harvard adquiriram ilegalmente centenas de milhares de hectares de terras no Cerrado.
Brazil's land agency and a state court have determined that pension fund manager TIAA and Harvard University’s endowment fund illegally acquired hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmlands in Brazil’s ecologically sensitive Cerrado region.