Mayor John Cooper's Sustainability Advisory Committee praised two of Nashville’s biggest asset managers on Thursday despite public concerns about institutional investments in fossil fuels. Presentations about corporate environmental stewardship from AllianceBernstein, which manages more than $750 billion, and Vanderbilt University, which manages around $10 billion, focused instead on consumer-side choices, like single-use plastic bottles and LEED-certified office facilities.
AllianceBernstein and Vanderbilt University were the two leading presentations at the committee’s July 28 meeting on corporate-social responsibility. Their reports come during an active student push at Vanderbilt calling for the university’s complete divestment from fossil fuel holdings. The campaign cites an open conflict of interest related to Chancellor Daniel Diermeier’s private consulting for oil companies.
Once referred to as Nashville’s "800-pound gorilla" by then-Mayor Phil Bredesen, Vanderbilt furnishes both of the Sustainability Advisory Committee's chairs: law professor Linda Breggin and Vice Chancellor Dan Kopstain. The Office of Investment controls Vanderbilt’s elite endowment, estimated at $10 billion last summer, and the administration has spent the past year-plus fending off a morally sound (sometimes disruptive) divestment push from students who want that money out of the oil and gas industry. In February, Dores Divest — the student group organizing the campaign, anchored by graduate student body president Miguel Moravec — filed a conflict of interest complaint with Tennessee’s attorney general. An internal investigation cleared Diermeier 10 days after the complaint was filed. Universities including Harvard, oft-cited by Vanderbilt as a peer institution, have formalized divestment policies in the past year.
When confronted about the divestment campaign at Thursday's meeting, Kopstain balked, deferring questions to his email. Kopstain did not respond to multiple requests for comment by the Scene. Neither did Damon Maida, Vanderbilt’s associate director of media relations. Julia Jordan, a senior strategic communications specialist at the university, directed the Scene to Vanderbilt’s statement on Diermeier’s alleged conflict of interest, issued in February. It reads:
This complaint is part of a coordinated publicity and pressure campaign, with almost identical complaints filed simultaneously against several universities. We take our fiduciary responsibilities and Tennessee state law seriously. Any allegations to the contrary have no merit.
Our ultimate goal for the endowment is to maintain healthy growth to support the university’s educational, research and service mission.
Managing Director Adam Sansiveri represented AllianceBernstein at Thursday’s meeting. In a litmus test for asset managers, AllianceBernstein’s industry peer Blackrock has been shamed very publicly over the past 18 months for continuing to invest in oil and gas while maintaining climate-friendly rhetoric. This phenomenon is often referred to as climate hypocrisy or greenwashing. AllianceBernstein has touted internal metrics for reducing energy use to the sustainability committee, though recently available documentation indicates that the corporation is reaping massive profits from oil, gas and coal. Corporate communications remain vague about AB’s fossil fuel holdings and explicitly criticize divestment. The corporation has instead produced a slew of publications that outline ways in which AllianceBernstein plans to profit from climate change, which it refers to alternatively as the “climate risk” and “climate imperative.”
Both presentations drew praise from the mayor’s Sustainability Advisory Committee on Thursday. The meeting took place on Zoom and was attended by about 60 of the committee’s 93 members.
The Scene received out-of-office replies when reaching out to both AllianceBernstein media contact Carly Symington and Mayor Cooper’s chief sustainability and resilience officer Kendra Abkowitz on Friday. Abkowitz confirmed that Thursday’s Zoom recording would be available to the public next weekend but did not respond to request for comment about divestment.
