As People & Planet’s annual University League is published, the University of Manchester has ranked in the middle of the road in 71st place. This is yet more evidence that the University is lagging behind on sustainability and ignoring its students’ demands for action for the environment.

Not only has the 2015 #1 failed to make any recognisable progress this year, the University of Plymouth has also failed to maintain it’s ranking between 2016 and 2017, falling a further two places down to 14^th.

Two of the University of Plymouths lowest scores are for Ethical Investment and Workers Rights.

This morning (October 24), we held a peaceful demonstration in Barclay’s bank on Cornmarket Street. Our group of students from the University of Oxford and members of the city joined an international effort to demand banks to stop funding fossil fuel expansion projects, “before it is too late”.

Barclays, specifically has invested £48 million in Kinder Morgan, the largest pipeline company in North America and the corporation responsible for Trans Mountain, a pipeline to transport the least efficient, dirtiest oil out of the tar sands in Canada.

This weekend (14-15 October) Young Labour – the youth wing of the UK Labour Party – passed a policy motion that included supporting fossil fuel divestment and joining the #DivestBarclays campaign to boycott the bank until they ditch fossil fuel finance.

The motion was heard at the National Youth Policy Conference 2017 and its success means that it is now the official position of Young Labour and will be proposed to the Labour Party on behalf of its young members to become national policy. See the motion in full below.