Who are CISL?
The Cambridge Institute for Sustainable Leadership is an institute of the University of Cambridge, founded in 1989 as Cambridge Programme for Industry. They claim to “activate leadership globally to transform economies for people, nature and climate” and “work with leaders and innovators across business, finance and government to accelerate action for a sustainable future.”
Well, that all sounds great, what’s the problem?
The problem is that they have been criticised for greenwashing and the promotion of “green” capitalism and colonialism, and have a long list of extractive industry partners.
This list includes:
- All arm companies – CISL is refusing to disclose their involvement in the apartheid and genocide in Palestine, or their links with arm companies such as Rolls-Royce (through the Aviation Impact Accelerator) or Boeing.
- The whole fossil fuel sector – despite advertising a blanket no for fossil fuel companies, they refuse to be transparent on this question, especially on the very-profitable education side of their business, or their links with smaller fossil-fuel companies (see for example CISL: the convo so far).
- Anglo-American – A UK mining company, sued over the mass lead poisoning of children in Zambia.
- AXA – An insurer with “$177 million invested in 12 weapons manufacturers supplying the ‘Israeli’ military with equipment” and the insurer of Drax, the UK’s largest carbon emitter.
- Coca-Cola – A company responsible for countless atrocities, from funding paramilitary violence in the global south to being the world’s biggest plastic polluter.
CISL justifies its work with these companies by claiming that it will push them in the right direction and towards a sustainable future, but with BP U-turning on renewables, and Coca-Cola’s pollution problem not seeming likely to go away anytime soon, it looks like their only impact is in greenwashing the reputations of these companies, sustaining their profits and sustaining their criminal behaviour.
More coming soon.
