We are excited to launch 🚀 TORIIS.earth, an interactive database that visualizes the University of Illinois System’s investments in fossil fuel companies, detail its carbon impacts, and outlines what Divestment at University of Illinois means. The creation of TORIIS.earth is motivated by the fight for a sustainable and healthy future, the deep need of transparent educational resources, and the desire for accessible accountability resources regarding financial decisions of the UIS administration and their stakeholders. You can support TORIIS.earth and take action by signing đź“ť our Open Letter!
In addition to an open letter requesting University of Illinois divest from fossil fuels, TORIIS.earth hosts interactive visualizations detailing the prudence of divestment and hosts a one of a kind searchable data for U of I Systems corporate bond investments.
Investigating the University of Illinois System’s investments, TORIIS shows that in Fiscal Year, the system reported over $120 million worth of corporate debt held in 52 companies (about 12% of the operating pool corporate bond ownership) that profited from the extraction, refinement, or transportation of coal, petroleum, or natural gas. Furthermore, the total amount of corporate bonds held in the University of Illinois System’s operating pool is responsible for financing 86,000+ metric tons of C02 emissions (calculated as total carbon emissions). Of these emissions, 66,000+ metric tons of C02 come from companies that profit from the extraction, transportation, or combustion of coal, petroleum, or natural gas.
As per the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Calculator, the negative environmental impact of University of Illinois System’s investments in fossil fuel companies is equivalent to the greenhouse gas emissions from 14,700+ gasoline-powered passenger vehicles driven for one year or 12,900+ homes’ electricity use for one year, and the positive environmental impact from institutional divestment is equivalent to the carbon emissions avoided by recycling over 2 million trash bags of waste or the carbon sequestered by over 1 million tree seedlings grown for 10 years.
TORIIS could not have been made without Students for Environmental Concerns at UIUC and H4I UIUC (Zora Zhang, Jocelyn Xu, Miranda Ma, Liza George, Daniel Moon, Anthony Cruz Macedo, Alex Masgras, Eesha Barua, Xiaofan Li, Amit Sawhney), with funding made possible by a grant from the Illinois Green Fund awarded by the University of Illinois Student Sustainability Committee. Connect with us at linktr.ee/toriis.earth!
