The UI is going through tough times. The economic recession has wreaked havoc on the university’s finances. It has cut deeply into the state’s budget, and that, in turn, has sliced through the UI’s. The university has had to make numerous sacrifices in order to balance its books, but integrity shouldn’t be one of them.
ExxonMobil’s contributions to the UI both last year and this year stand in direct contradiction to the university’s commitment to sustainability and risk eroding its integrity.
The UI announced on Sept. 11 that ExxonMobil donated approximately $100,000 to the UI Foundation — the nonprofit organization that handles private donations to the university — as part of the oil company’s employee matching program. Under the program, ExxonMobil donates $3 for every $1 an employee or employee’s relative donates to the foundation. Employee donations last year totaled more than $36,000 last year.
ExxonMobil’s donation is a large sum and will no doubt help floundering departments desperately in need of some extra cash. But impressive as it may be, ExxonMobil’s donations are antithetical to the UI’s sustainability commitment. The university introduced a certificate program this semester designed to prepare students for sustainability careers and research. The new Beckwith Boathouse is the first building at the UI to receive Leadership in Energy Environmental Design certification. Craig Just, an associate research scientist of civil-environmental engineering, said the UI was looking to expand its commitment to sustainability.
ExxonMobil’s donations come at an inappropriate time.
The oil giant is a leader in arguably the least sustainable industry in the world and delivered a $45 billion profit to shareholders last years. Despite its public-relations blitz touting the company as environmentally friendly, the numbers tell a very different story. ExxonMobil has invested about $1.5 billion since 2004 “to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and improve energy efficiency,” according to its 2008 annual report, but spent $12.3 billion on capital and oil exploration products in the first half of 2009 alone, according to the Dallas Business Journal. The priorities of the ostensibly “green” company are clear.
The company is also responsible for one of North America’s greatest environmental disasters. The Exxon Valdez — an Exxon oil tanker — ran aground on the Alaskan coast in 1989, spilling millions of gallons of oil and severely damaged the environment.
The money ExxonMobil and its employees have donated and continue to donate to the UI is no small sum. But relative to other donations the UI Foundation has received, it’s not gargantuan, either. Susan Shullaw, the UI Foundation senior vice president for strategic communications, said Exxon’s $100,000 approximate donation was one of around 100 other donations similar in size.
The UI Foundation received more than $200 million in contributions this year — an 8 percent increase over last year, according to its website. ExxonMobil’s contribution is a drop of oil in the ocean comparably.
The contribution’s relative size and scope illuminates the UI Foundation’s reasoning behind its acceptance. Shullaw said the UI and UI Foundation officials take a second look at a company only if its contribution could lead to recognition. The UI would think twice if the oil giant wanted to give $50 million toward the ExxonMobil Center for Sustainability, for example, but the UI Foundation didn’t hesitate in accepting $100,000. Shullaw said the company’s matching program is more about ExxonMobil encouraging its employees and other alumni to give back to the UI than the company looking for recognition.
ExxonMobil isn’t the first company with a questionable reputation the UI has accepted money from. Coca-Cola is infamous for allegations of union-busting and environmental degradation, yet the company still enjoys a sales monopoly on campus and at sporting events.
The ExxonMobil donation, however, highlights an even starker contradiction. The UI is busy trying to market itself as a “green” university. But how green can the UI really be if ExxonMobil is paying the bills?