Fossil Free Careers

Our university careers department needs to stop putting new workers into oil, gas and mining industries, and take responsibility for building the sustainable, ethical workforce we need to transition to a just and equitable energy system and low-carbon economy.

We call upon the university careers department to:

• Refuse all new relationships with oil, gas, mining, or arms companies
• Decline to renew any current relationships with oil, gas, mining, and arms companies after the contractually obligated period ends
• Adopt a publicly available Ethical Careers Policy that explicitly excludes oil, gas and mining companies from recruitment opportunities

Oil, gas, mining, and arms industries cause immense environmental and social harm.

They are displacing people from their homes and lands, destroying livelihoods, demolishing sacred indigenous sites and leaving workers and communities with severe health problems.

By actively promoting careers in the oil, gas, and mining sectors, universities are reinforcing the power of those industries and contributing to the climate and ecological crisis. This practice must end. The university have divested all direct fossil fuel investments and do not invest in companies that derive a significant revenue from arms manufacture, recognising that it is wrong to invest money in the very companies wrecking the planet. Yet they have no policy to prevent oil, gas, and mining companies recruiting students on their campus.

There is no future for jobs in these industries: they are dead end jobs for students and graduates. Even the most conservative science states we need to dramatically scale down resource extraction if we are to avoid the worst impacts of the climate and ecological crisis.

We ask for the university to remain giving non-biased advice to all students no matter their career path or company they wish to pursue, but to stop promoting careers in harmful industries.

How can you get involved?