2021 Methodology

2021 Methodology

Scoring Principles

We followed the example of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investment movement, which has provided a framework for evaluating companies on ethical criteria, not just through traditional financial metrics like return on investment. Similarly, CLOC’s goal is to provide current and prospective students, as well as alumni and local citizens with a means of assessing how well colleges are tackling the climate emergency. In the interests of full transparency and to provide as much granular detail of exactly how points were apportioned in our scoring process as possible, here we will set out out our methodological approach.

Here are the principles we followed:

We weighted scores to reward comprehensive actions over partial ones, binding targets over non-binding, specificity over vagueness, sooner rather than later, high-quality over low, and anything above silence and inaction.
At its heart, this is a student-led project. It thus reflects priorities of the student-led climate campaigns carried out across both universities over the past few years, and also the demands of other student climate campaigns such as the Greta Thunberg-inspired Fridays for Future movement.
We consulted extensively with experts including professional environmental consultancies as well as faculty-members from both Universities. We also were informed by the work of 350.org’s Go Fossil Free campaign in categorising divestment action.
Based on the two above points, CLOC assigned 50 points to colleges’ financial relationships with fossil fuel companies (30 points for divestment and 20 for delinking) and 50 points to actions relating to reaching zero carbon emissions (35 points decarbonisation and 15 points for climate governance).
We aimed to balance ambition with realism. No college received 100 points because all have much further to go, but relatively few received 0, recognising that work is going on and few colleges have completely ignored the implications of their operations on the environment. At the same time, we did not compromise on our view of what is necessary and urgent in our climate emergency: most colleges have taken remarkably little action to mitigate their contribution to climate change, and so few score above 50 points.
We aimed to avoid a wealth bias. For example, wealthy colleges are more likely to use costly outside fund managers, rather than investing simply in the University’s endowment management fund. We weighted our scores and wrote our questions to account for this.
When scoring colleges which didn’t answer our questionnaire, we only used publicly-available information. We followed the principle that colleges should be transparent about their commitment to environmental action, given its importance to their students and communities and Oxbridge Colleges’ roles as institutions which punch well above their weight in terms of influencing other institutions to change. This also follows government and regulatory authority guidance that either requests or requires organisations to be fully transparent about their climate-related actions.
We worked on the assumption and hope that, for years to come, the Tables will be a tool for students to understand and change colleges’ behaviour. Over time, students’ priorities may shift and our collective understanding will improve of the best responses to climate crisis. Accordingly, we will update the Tables each year, and may tweak our questions and scoring methodology. We hope it will help to push colleges in the direction that students want and that science and justice demand.

Below is a more granular breakdown for each of the four categories for those areas where further clarification was needed to ensure fairness and consistency in scoring.

Decarbonisation (35 points)

The inclusion of a decarbonisation category represents the importance to students (and, often, colleges themselves) of reducing the college’s own emissions. Below, we explain how we scored some of the questions:

Question 1.1: We start by asking whether a college knows how much carbon it emits now (i.e. its carbon baseline). This question arose from CLOC’s consultation with Aleron Partners, the climate consultancy for charities, who observed that you can’t journey to zero carbon if you don’t know where you are. Full points were allocated for Colleges who had published a comprehensive carbon baseline for all three emissions scopes, with half points given for Colleges who had only done so for scopes 1 and 2.

Question 1.2 (‘Do you have a published carbon reduction and/or biodiversity net gain strategy?’): in order to get any points here, the College must meet a threshold of what actually constitutes a strategy. This must go beyond vague, unsubstantiated assertions like “we aim to reduce our carbon emissions”. Provided they meet this threshold, their plans are scored according to a simple scale:

1-2 points: The College will have some limited areas of focus on specific areas of their emissions (e.g. electricity use, vehicles, heating) with some detail on how reductions will be achieved. For this band, the plan will not be comprehensive or particularly detailed. It will have some limited detail on plans for implementation (e.g. methods of carbon reduction, timeline, cost etc). To reach this band, a plan must go beyond vague assertions like “we aim to reduce our carbon emissions through making improvements to our estate and heating systems”.
3-5 points: Plans scoring in this higher band will have much more detailed, concrete information on how the reductions will be achieved and on what timeline. They will be firm commitments, backed up by a clear plan. To achieve five points, the plan will have to be detailed and comprehensive across all College’s operations (beyond heating and electricity and also covering flights and procurement). No or very limited reliance on offsets across all scopes will also help to achieve full points, including for example attempting sensible elimination measures for scope 3 emissions (e.g. reducing the total number of flights rather than simply offsetting them).

Question 1.4 (‘Do you have a public target date for reaching zero carbon emissions?): We encountered the issue of “proxy points” in this category. Some colleges state that they are involved with Oxford University’s Environmental Sustainability Policy, which is the strategy by which Oxford University fulfills its recent commitments to reach net zero emissions and net biodiversity gain, both by 2035. This could allow the colleges to claim vicariously that they have net zero targets. If the college states specifically that it “adheres to” or “complies with” OU’s Environmental Sustainability Policy, we awarded 10 points. If the claim is anything less than this (eg. “involved”, “guided by”), then we awarded 0 points. Full points were only given for a 2030 date or earlier.

Divestment (30 points)

Many of the Oxbridge colleges are extremely wealthy institutions, with combined assets well in excess of £15 billion. The divestment section looks at whether a college has moved its investment assets away from those fossil fuel companies that caused and continue to exacerbate the climate crisis. There are a variety of investment policies employed across Oxford and Cambridge Colleges, some very weak, others extremely robust, so we have created a declining point scale, starting from those colleges that have totally divested all direct and indirect investments already (30 points), with decreasing points as divestment commitments become less ambitious.Those colleges that have done absolutely nothing get a zero.
If we knew that the college has some, but not all, endowment funds invested with OUem/CUEF, and has not made a full divestment commitment as per 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3 then the following was applied:

If the percentage of the College’s endowment invested through OUem/CUEF was publicly disclosed, then the score for divestment should be that percentage multiplied by 20 points, eg. Christ Church has 40% of their endowment funds with OUem, so would get 40% of the 20 points, ie. a score of 8 points.
If the College has a weak divestment commitment as per 3.4, 3.5 or 3.6 then the percentage of funds outside of OUem/CUCF is multiplied by the amount of points that divestment commitment scores and is added to the amount of points they receive for being within OUem/CUCF. For example, St Edmund Hall has a public commitment to divest from fossil fuel companies not aligned with the Paris Agreement, but does not require these companies to demonstrate “hard” net zero plans as per OUem. Given that 60% of its investments are in OUem and 40% outside of OUem it gets 12 points, 60% of the 20 points, for having investments in OUem and 6 points, 40% of the 15 points, for its investment policy giving it a total of 18 points.
When we did not know the proportion of the college’s endowment in OUem/CUEF, we could not award points. The proportion of the endowment in OUem/CUEF is very significant in determining the college’s environmental responsibility. This is because we know that some, unclear amount of money is managed according to OUem/CUEF’s comparatively rigorous rules, potentially a hundreds of millions of pounds-worth difference. We initially considered assuming 50% of their endowment was in OUem/CUEF as a standard rate, when we didn’t know the proportion. However, we decided against this approach because we wanted to avoid incentivising colleges not to disclose. If the real proportion of a college’s endowment invested in OUem/CUEF was 10%, then by assuming 50% we would be incentivising that college not to disclose. So, for the colleges that did not disclose the proportion of their endowment in OUem/CUEF, we decided not to give them points for their OUem-managed funds. This will ultimately incentivise transparency and disclosure, and help to show how much money is now being managed more responsibly after the University’s historic and laudable decision to divest. Many colleges could score significantly more points overnight by simply publishing the breakdown of their investments.
The difference of 5 points between questions 3.4 and 3.5 was essentially used to reflect the strength of net zero commitments that fund managers required from the funds and companies they invested in. Specifically, OUem requires Paris-aligned, “hard” net zero plans of its fund managers. The strength of this commitment was rewarded with a maximum of 20 points, compared to softer, Paris-aligned restrictions represented in question 3.5.
Colleges’ level of wealth makes a difference to their approach to investment. For example, it is cheaper for colleges to invest simply through the OUem or CUEF endowment managers, rather than using the services of separate wealth managers. Given this correlation between a college being less wealthy and it having the entirety of its endowment in OUem/CUEF, and because we wanted to avoid a wealth bias in our divestment section, we avoided penalising colleges for not having an explicit divestment policy when they were wholly invested through one of these endowment managers.
We also penalised “investment complacency”. Let’s use an example. College X, Oxford is wholly invested through OUem. Under our methodology, it will receive 20 points. On the other hand, College Z, Oxford is 40% invested through OUem, giving them 8 points at least (40% of 20 points, for fulfilling question 3.4), but without any public information about how it manages that 60% of its endowment external to OUem. We reasoned that if a college actively manages funds outside OUem/CUEF, they have had the opportunity and cause to consider how ethical these investments are. This opportunity places on them a greater burden to consider the impact of (and be transparent about) those investments. Therefore, for College Z, they would get no points for the 60% proportion of their endowments outside of OUem.
For Colleges that either have a divestment policy that only covers direct investments or have a vague reference to ESG principles, question 3.6 awards 5 points.

Delinking (20 points)

Delinking relates to the process of rescinding the social license for fossil fuels and includes, for example, refusing gifts and donations from fossil fuel companies or banking with fossil-fuel-friendly banks. The role fossil fuel companies have played in undermining climate change science, and thus delaying vital action, is well documented. Further, the current capital expenditure plans of fossil fuel companies mean that the volume of oil and gas to be produced in future makes catastrophic climate change inevitable. Those people concerned about climate, and especially the young, view such actions as morally reprehensible. This section is the least complex in terms of methodology, with binary criteria of colleges’ actions. We awarded 10 points to those colleges that publicly refuse to take “dirty money” in the form of grants and donations. Another 10 points are awarded to colleges that publicly pressure their banks to distance themselves from fossil fuel companies.

Governance (15 Points)

Tackling climate change requires leadership and accountability. A college that is serious about making changes will have set up governance structures at the highest decision-making level and will have given such structures the authority to make the necessary changes. Many colleges do have a committee or working group for environmental policy. However, we found that the robustness, quality and scope of these committees varied widely across the colleges. We wanted to reward the colleges whose committees had specific goals and ways of achieving them, as well as power and an exhaustive remit. Conversely, we wanted to encourage other colleges whose committees had vague goals, undefined roles within the governance structure, or narrow focus to improve their governance arrangements. Also, we are only interested in ranking the college’s governance, not its students, and so we focused on college governance structures rather than student committees (many JCR and MCR ethics and environment committees exist, and are a crucial part of the universities’ environmental advocacy network).

Excellent - 15 Points
To receive a full 15 points, a college’s Sustainability Committee should:

Have a specific remit over environmental/sustainability issues.
Include people who have real power within the college, e.g. fellows, domestic bursar, bursar.
Be well integrated into the governance structure of the college, meeting regularly (defined as at least once per term) and being able to report on the college’s environmental practices and make recommendations to the governing body.
Have a publicly available policy or strategy; or be involved in the creation of the college’s sustainability policy.
Look at all important areas of a college’s environmental responsibility, such as investments, energy sourcing and usage, waste, food sourcing, buildings and biodiversity.

Example – Jesus College, Cambridge (https://www.jesus.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/inline/files/Sustainability%20Strategy%202020-2030.pdf)

Good – 10 Points
To receive 10 points, a college’s Sustainability Committee should:

Have a specific remit over environmental/sustainability issues.
Include people who have real power within the college, e.g. fellows.
Specify how the Committee seeks to achieve its goals.
Look at some important areas of a college’s environmental responsibility.

Example – Somerville College, Oxford (https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about/sustainability/#block-1)

Need for Improvement – 5 Points
To receive 5 points, a college should:

Have a Sustainability Committee or working group that is not solely composed of students.

Example – Green Templeton College, Oxford (https://www.gtc.ox.ac.uk/about/sustainability/)

No Relevant Committee – 0 Points
If a college has no committee or working group that deals with climate issues, or has a group that is solely composed of students, then we are awarding 0 points.

Other Issues to Note

College inclusion criteria: Oxford University has 39 colleges (including postgraduate-only colleges) and six “permanent private halls” (PPHs). We excluded the PPHs because they are not independent, self-governing and financially autonomous bodies. Their governance rests in part on their corresponding religious denomination, and they do not publish annual accounts under Charity Commission guidelines. We also excluded Reuben College on the basis of how recently it was created, having only started receiving students in 2021-2022. It will be included in future Green Norrington Tables. Finally, we excluded All Souls College given its size and special financial status. These considerations left us with 37 Oxford colleges included in the Norrington Table. We included all of Cambridge’s 31 colleges in the Tompkins Table. Oxford’s 37 colleges and Cambridge’s 31 left us with a total of 68 evaluated across our two Tables.