ORCA

Organisation of Radical Cambridge Activists for Environmental Liberation

Tag: cisl

  • Cambridge Sustainability and Sudan

    Cambridge Sustainability and Sudan

    The United Arab Emirates are the main backers of the Rapid Support Forces.

    The counter-revolutionary war in Sudan opposes two factions: the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both of those have been long involved in the violence in Sudan, from the genocide in Darfur in 2003 to the crackdown on the Sudanese revolution in 2019.

    Their war is now inflicting a devastating toll on the population: more than 150.000 deaths, and more than 12 millions displaced. The recent RSF exactions in El Fasher have been extremely brutal, with more than 2000 civilians dead in 48 hours.

    For more info, follow sudan.updates on Instagram.

    CISL and the UAE: a greenwashing partnership

    picture of Ibrahim Al-Zu'bi taken from the ADNOC website.

    Ibrahim Al-Zu’bi

    He is head of sustainability at ADNOC and senior associate at CISL. He is also working for the UAE government.1

    The Abu-Dhabi National Oil Corporation (ADNOC) is the biggest oil company in the UAE and the 12th biggest in the world, owned by the UAE government. You might know its CEO as the host of COP28.2

    ADNOC's logo

    CISL recently told us they were not working with oil companies – this seems to have been untrue.

    CISL sells executive education to emirati groups.

    They also organise events in Dubai, and have strong links with financial institutions there.3 Their ambassador for the Middle East works for the World Trade Center in Dubai4.

    CISL openly boast about their interventions for big real estate & tourism industry groups based in Dubai.5 Real estate and tourism is a huge part in the UAE strategy of diversification from oil&gas. These industries are part of its soft power: what helps it finance wars without facing repercussions.

    What should change?

    CISL must drop Ibrahim Al’Zubi and investigate their other associates for connections with the fossil fuel industry and genocide financing.

    CISL must cut all ties to genocidal states. It is not ethical to sustain the economies of Israel and the UAE as they profit from atrocities.

    We continue to stand against CISL’s model of extractive, colonial “sustainability”. We know it is possible for academic institutions to lend their power to grassroots justice movements. Put people over profits, and imagine a world beyond the extractivist capitalism system.

    See our social media posts about it:

    Sources

    1.  Source: “Ibrahim Al-Zu’bi”. Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2025-11-03. ↩︎
    2. Source: “Abu Dhabi National Oil Company”. Wikipedia. ↩︎
    3. Source: “Middle East: Executive Education”. Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2025-11-22. ↩︎
    4. Source: “Shyrose Osman”. Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). University of Cambridge. Retrieved 2025-11-22. ↩︎
    5. Source:  “GREEN FINANCE FRAMEWORK” (PDF). Majid Al Futtaim. Majid Al Futtaim. 2019-04-01. Retrieved 2025-11-03. ↩︎

  • NO OIL NO ARMS NO EMPIRE

    NO OIL NO ARMS NO EMPIRE

    On November 23rd 2025, a group of activists representing ORCA tagged the office of the Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the University of Cambridge’s premier greenwashing operation.

    Through its deliberate attempts to greenwash the colonial actions of its partners – a coalition of major multinational polluters, imperialists, and arms companies, including British Petroleum, Coca Cola, and Rolls-Royce, CISL operates as a PR firm to capitulate to and justify the violent colonialism of some of the most vicious and destructive corporations in the capitalist economy. This includes profiteers of the apartheid regime in occupied Palestine, the genocide in Sudan and the Congo, and the facilitators of land-grabs in the Middle East and North Africa, with many of those companies having strong relationships with Donald Trump, Israel’s Likud party, and the Saudi royal family.

    ORCA sees CISL for what it is, an attempt by capitalists and colonialists to cushion the blow of their murderous and imperialist actions in the Global South and for the university itself to hide its culpability in genocide and environmental devastation. There can be no “sustainability” while capitulating to tyrants, genocidaires, and oil barons.

    For more detailed information on CISL’s shady dealings, see our campaign page CISL & Sustainable Lies.

  • CISL and Trump are in love … with mining

    CISL and Trump are in love … with mining

    On October 6th, 2025, Trump approved construction of the infamous Ambler road in Alaska. This road project links to the highway network the Ambler mining district, allowing massive mining operations.

    This project, opposed by a local group called Protect the Kobuk, would massively undermine the indigenous practices. According to the US Administration own reports, this would also threaten fish and caribou habitats, on which the indigenous rely to survive. This would also impact air and water quality, and risk poisoning aquifers.

    The Ambler District would be exploited by a consortium made of Trilogy Metals and South32. Trilogy Metals is mainly exploiting mines in Alaska. South32 is a mining company head-quartered in Perth, Australia. It has massive operations in Australia, South Africa, Columbia and Chile. South32 is a member of CISL’s Corporate Leaders Group, a network of executives facilitated by CISL.

    Environmental assessment

    The project was rejected by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in June of 2024.

    Their report on the decision lists the impact of the road on the 11 major and hundreds of minor rivers the road would cross all of which are important for the feeding, breeding, overwintering, and spawning of more than 20 species of fish including species critical to the subsistence of the local communities living on the land the road will cross.

    It will also cross the migratory and ranging paths of a large caribou herd in the region which acts as a major food source for over 40 communities and is set to be heavily disrupted by the developments

    It also cuts through several areas used by locals to gather fruit, vegetation, and to hunt moose and fowl. The development will affect the ability of the local people to harvest several key food sources.

    The construction of the road, and runoff from both the vehicles traversing it and the new mines it allows to be created, are liable to result in water pollution downstream of the crossed rivers, as well as in the surrounding wetlands affecting local water supplies and increasing the concentrations of heavy metals like lead.

    Unfortunately, Trump revoked this assessment in 2025.

    Involvement of the US government

    As detailed above, under the Biden administration, the project was closed because the environmental assessments had failed.

    But Trump revived it, and revoked the previous environmental assessments. The White House and the US department of war invested significantly in Trilogy Metals (10 and 5% respectively), the former even announced a partnership with Trilogy Metals.

    The US department of war announced a partnership with Ambler Metals for strategic minerals. The mines in Ambler District will prop up the US military industrial complex, which is killing people all around the world, including participating in the genocide in Gaza.

    South32 and CISL

    Where’s CISL in all this?

    CISL loves industry, especially if they make billions and if they can sell companies some good greenwashing. For South32, it means participating in the industry forum Corporate Leaders Groups (CLG), that CISL facilitates.

    Those CLGs are full of mining companies. Mining is great for greenwashing: you can extract products from indigenous people’s land and still claim that it’s for the energy transition. CISL can even back up your claims by saying that getting out of fossil fuels will need those minerals.

    See also and sources

    Our social media post about this (link to be put).

    Protect the Kobuk is an collective fighting against this project.

    The wikipedia article about Ambler Road is instructive.

    The Ambler Metals website has 2 press-releases about the US government implication in their operations, here and here.

    The US administration internal environmental assessment [direct link, archived].

    The Corporate Leaders Group Africa lists South 32 as one of their members [direct link, archived].