What is CLOC?
The Norrington and Tompkins Tables rank Oxford and Cambridge colleges, respectively, based on their students’ academic performance. But we want to turn the tables because colleges can’t turn back the clock. We’re students ranking our colleges on the climate commitments that they should have made years ago. Currently, their climate change mitigation efforts have been negligible while, in total, they have over £14bn in assets and an annual income of £848m. Given the scale of climate emergency we face, we cannot afford the sorts of half-measures we have seen from our Colleges for far too long. We need real action, and we need it now. This is not a test any of us can afford to fail.
How do we drive change, and fast, across these centuries-old institutions? We think a healthy dose of competition will help to focus minds and accelerate radical policy changes within the colleges. Colleges are ranked based on a score out of 100. They’re scored based on a rigorous, best-practice questionnaire that uses four criteria: decarbonisation plans, divestment commitments, delinking from fossil fuel interests and public disclosures of all of the above.
It’s never been more clear that it is “Code Red for Humanity”. World leaders met at the COP 26 Glasgow climate talks in November to determine global climate policy, exposing even more acutely how far behind so many Colleges still are. Prevarication and procrastination need to be replaced by deed and decision. Colleges need to lead and champion the changes demanded by the climate crisis.
CLOC is a coalition of the Oxford and Cambridge Students' Unions, student and community climate justice campaigns, alumni associations, citizen action groups, and concerned citizens in the cities of Oxford & Cambridge.
Time to wake up. The CLOC's ticking.
How do we drive change, and fast, across these centuries-old institutions? We think a healthy dose of competition will help to focus minds and accelerate radical policy changes within the colleges. Colleges are ranked based on a score out of 100. They’re scored based on a rigorous, best-practice questionnaire that uses four criteria: decarbonisation plans, divestment commitments, delinking from fossil fuel interests and public disclosures of all of the above.
It’s never been more clear that it is “Code Red for Humanity”. World leaders met at the COP 26 Glasgow climate talks in November to determine global climate policy, exposing even more acutely how far behind so many Colleges still are. Prevarication and procrastination need to be replaced by deed and decision. Colleges need to lead and champion the changes demanded by the climate crisis.
CLOC is a coalition of the Oxford and Cambridge Students' Unions, student and community climate justice campaigns, alumni associations, citizen action groups, and concerned citizens in the cities of Oxford & Cambridge.
Time to wake up. The CLOC's ticking.
"The colleges of Oxford and Cambridge university have deep links with the fossil fuel industry, and continue to drag their heels on meaningful climate action. It’s wonderful to see students using their power to expose these colleges for what they are: failing on climate, failing their students, and complicit in climate and ecological breakdown."
Fergus Green, Climate Justice Campaign Coordinator at People & Planet
"We owe it to current and future victims of the climate crisis to do everything within our power to address it now. We knew that colleges have a moral duty to use their wealth and influence to these ends. But the methodology behind the CLOC Tables shows just how far they have to go in decarbonising, divesting and delinking"
Reuben Binns, Associate Professor of Human-Centred Computing, Kellogg College, Oxford Centre of Computer Science
It’s absolutely vital that all organisations – public and private – take significant steps to address the impact on the climate. Sadly, this analysis shows that Oxford’s colleges still have a long way to go to deliver what’s needed. As a city, we’re proud to have world-leading institutions of teaching and research like Oxford’s colleges. Now those same institutions need to step up to the plate and become world leaders on addressing the climate crisis too.
Chris Jarvis, leader of the Green Party on Oxford City Council
Everything we don't do today will have to be done by the next generation. And when they try to pick up the pieces of our mistakes it may already be too late, or at best ruinously expensive, to avoid irreversible climate change. That is why we think it is brilliant that the students in our city are demanding better. A number of Oxford colleges and their partners are currently in the process of building tens of thousands of houses on Green Belt land they own to the south-east and north of the city. How ambitious are they really being? How determined are they to make them car-free, sustainable developments fit for the future zero-carbon world in which we need to live? Progress so far suggests that some are not doing nearly enough. They could go much further, and this kind of initiative will help shine a light on that.
Cllr Tim Bearder, Wheatley, Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Oxfordshire County Council Cabinet Member for Highway Management, Cllr Robin Bennett, Berinsfield & Garsington, Green Party (Liberal Democrat Green Alliance), Cllr Neil Fawcett, Abingdon South Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Cabinet Member for Community Services & Safety, Cllr Andy Graham, Woodstock, Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Cllr Ian Middleton, Kidlington South, Green Party (Liberal Democrat Green Alliance), Cllr Pete Sudbury, Wallingford, Green Party (Liberal Democrat Green Alliance), Cabinet Member for Climate Change Delivery & Environment, Cllr Bethia Thomas, Faringdon, Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Cllr Sally Povolotsky, Hendreds & Harwell, Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Cllr Dan Levy Eynsham, Liberal Democrat Green Alliance (Liberal Democrat Member), Cllr Susanna Pressel, Jericho & Osney (Labour & Co-operative Party Group), Vice Chair of Council, Cllr Charlie Hicks, Cowley, Labour & Co-operative Party Group