Responsible investment

As a charity, the University of Birmingham has a responsibility – known as fiduciary duty – to manage our finances well to support our objectives to provide world-leading education and research.

Our responsibility includes how we grow our money that has been set aside to be invested, so that it can help fund our ongoing work – including all the ways we support our students and deliver our research activities, and how we maintain and develop our campus.

Investments are a complicated subject; managing them needs specialised knowledge. On these pages, you’ll find a breakdown of how we manage our investments. We’ll also explain how investments work at the University, to provide you with background knowledge and context.

Key questions you’ll find the answer to here:

• Where is student money invested?
• Does the University invest in Armaments?
• Does the University invest in Fossil Fuels?
• Are the University’s investment managers required to abide by the University’s Responsible Investment Policy? 
• How does the University ensure that its Responsible Investment Policy is being complied with?
• Can the University publish a list of the underlying companies of the pooled funds in which it indirectly invests through the Outsourced Chief Investment Officer?
• Who does the University bank with?
• I have seen information published online by a third party regarding the University’s investments, but the University is saying something different. Which source of information is correct? See how we currently invest.

Have your say on investments
OCIO – Introduction video on the key fundamentals to investing

Our investment commitments

The University of Birmingham is committed to maintaining the highest possible environmental, social and governance (ESG) standards across our investment portfolios, all while continuing to meet our fiduciary obligations.

We – and any external investment managers we employ – are signatories to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), which sets out how we incorporate ESG factors in any investment decisions.

We proactively invest in line with our Responsible Investment Policy, and where it supports our legal responsibility to support our ongoing commitment to education and research now and in the future.

A key consideration in responsible investments is deciding on which companies we do not invest in. Our criteria for those companies, known as exclusions, mean that we don’t invest in companies that profit from activities in the following areas:

• Tobacco
• Armaments
• Human Rights and Labour Standards
• Oil and Mining Companies