Swansea UCU is backing the Fossil Free Careers campaign after a motion (see below) was passed at a GM on Monday 9^th January. The campaign calls on Swansea Employability Academy (SEA) to stop actively promoting careers in the oil, gas, and mining industries. This means no longer inviting these companies to attend careers fairs, to advertise their vacancies on careers websites, or to promote them in emails to the student body.

Universities are providing a recruitment pipeline into the extractive industries, and are propping up the companies most responsible for destroying the climate and the planet.  But students across the UK are fighting back and campaigning to get their University careers services to end their relationships with the oil, gas, and mining industries.

Four UK universities have so far committed to fossil free careers. Swansea UCU branch is one of the first branches in the UK to declare support.

More information on the campaign can be found here: https://peopleandplanet.org/fossil-free-careers

A petition for the Swansea Fossil Free Career Campaign can be found here: https://peopleandplanet.org/petitions/fossil-free-careers/fossil-free-careers-swansea

The motion:

This branch notes:

1. Impartial, evidence-based advice offered by HEI careers services is valuable for students and wider society.

2. HEI careers services promoting roles in oil, gas and mining industries is likely contributing to the global climate crisis, and leading students into careers which will decline as we rapidly decarbonise our economies.

3. Congress 2017 passed a motion resolving to “work with members affected by a move to a low carbon economy, other trade unions, and environmentalists” to campaign for a Just Transition.

This branch resolves:

1. To actively work with People & Planet to publicly support the student-led Fossil Free Careers campaign, calling on university careers services to align their operations with sustainability considerations, particularly by declining to promote oil, gas and mining companies.

2. To produce a website statement about this motion and UCU support for this campaign, and amplify the calls to action of it.