Irresponsible Science?
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Irresponsible Science? How the fossil fuel and arms industries finance professional engineering and science organisations Irresponsible Science? How the fossil fuel and arms industries finance professional engineering and science organisations Authors: Stuart Parkinson and Philip Wood Research by: Philip Wood and Stuart Parkinson Funded by: Quaker Peace and Social Witness (QPSW), under its ‘Peaceworker’ programme; and The Martin Ryle Trust ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dr Stuart Parkinson is Executive Director of SGR, a post he has held since 2003. He is an author/editor of numerous SGR reports, including Science and the Corporate Agenda, Offensive Insecurity, Shale Gas and Fracking: Examining the Evidence and UK Nuclear Weapons: A Catastrophe in the Making? He has also written numerous articles, both for the mainstream media and for academic journals. He has degrees in physics and electronic engineering (BEng) and climate science (PhD), and has worked in academia, for non-governmental organisations, and in industry. He has also been an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Philip Wood worked as a researcher for SGR for 18 months as part of the QPSW Peaceworker programme. Philip holds a BA in politics which was awarded by the University of Bradford’s Department of Peace Studies. Philip has been involved in campaigning and research on issues of peace and social justice for over a decade, especially related to the international arms trade. Philip currently works for QPSW providing support for a number of their programmes. Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) is a UK-based membership organisation which promotes responsible science and technology. Its membership includes hundreds of natural scientists, social scientists, engineers and professionals in related areas. It carries out research, education, and advocacy work centred around science and technology for peace, social justice and environmental sustainability. It is an active partner of ICAN, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017. To join, see: https://www.sgr.org.uk/join Published by © Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) in October 2019 under a Creative Commons Licence. Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Design and typesetting by the Argument by Design; printing by Precision Printing. ISBN: 978–0–9549406–8–3 Printed copies of this report can be obtained from: Scientists for Global Responsibility, Unit 2.8, Halton Mill, Mill Lane, Halton, Lancaster LA2 6ND Email: [email protected] Electronic copies can be downloaded from: http://www.sgr.org.uk/ © Scientists for Global Responsibility (SGR) 2019. SGR owns the copyright to this material but permits its use elsewhere as appropriate. In addition to short quotations, which can be extracted and used freely, SGR will therefore also release full-length documents for reproduction and distribution provided: a) They are used for non-commercial purposes. b) No part of the content is in any way altered or edited. c) We are first notified by email to [email protected] with a statement of intended use and contact details. d) This notice is reproduced on every copy. Cover images: iStock and Ministry of Defence. Contents Executive Summary 2 1. Introduction 6 2. Background issues 7 2.1 Professional engineering and science organisations (PESOs) 7 2.2 Fossil fuel industry 8 2.3 Arms industry 11 2.4 Divestment and boycott campaigns 16 3. Methodological issues 18 4. Main findings: the finanical links 22 4.1 Investments 22 4.2 School education programmes 28 4.3 Events sponsorship 31 4.4 Other financial and institutional links 34 4.5 Other relevant policies 35 5. Discussing the ethical issues 37 6. Conclusions 40 7. Recommendations 43 References 45 Acknowledgements 50 List of appendices 51 Acronyms and abbreviations 52 IRRESPONSIBLE SCIENCE? 1 Executive summary This report reveals a previously unrecognised the enormous environmental and security pattern of financial links between the fossil problems currently facing the world. fuel and arms industries on the one hand, and some of the UK’s leading professional Scope of the study engineering and science organisations on the Professional engineering and science other. The links revealed include funding and organisations (PESOs) – which include branding of school education programmes, professional institutions and learned societies sponsorship of prestige conferences and – play a very important role in modern dinners, investments, major donations, and society, setting standards of conduct and corporate membership. The professional providing leadership for scientists and organisations that received the most engineers. As such, PESOs help the world significant funding from these controversial gain a wide range of important social and industries were the Royal Academy of environmental benefits. Yet society is also Engineering, EngineeringUK and the Energy facing enormous threats created by the Institute. irresponsible use of science and technology. These threats include the global climate and We found that some of the most influential air pollution crises, as well as the resurgent professional engineering and science nuclear arms race, increasingly brutal organisations prominently and, at times, conventional wars fuelled by the international preferentially promoted the fossil fuel and arms trade, and growing risks from cyber arms sectors. This is despite these industries and robotic weapons. At the centre of these having serious ethical shortcomings, such as problems lie very powerful fossil fuel and failing to take the necessary scale of action arms corporations. Yet the financial and to reduce carbon emissions or continuing institutional links between these industries to export weapons that fuel conflict and and PESOs have rarely been investigated human rights abuses. Of most concern, in depth. some professional bodies promoted these industries to school children and other key This study seeks to fill this gap. We uncovered audiences, but failed to discuss important a wide range of financial relationships ethical issues. Many invested large amounts between PESOs and the fossil fuel and arms in these companies, but did not acknowledge industries, and critically examined these potential conflicts of interest. Most also links. To do this, we investigated a sample of failed to publish key financial data which 20 leading PESOs, all based in the UK, but would allow their members and others to hold many having international memberships. them to account. We focused on four main financial links – funding of school education programmes; For ethical and reputational reasons, we investments; event sponsorship; and argue that professional bodies should both be corporate membership schemes – as well as much more transparent about their income other areas in which we could find data. We from corporations, and take major action to also looked at relevant organisational policies, reduce and/or eliminate their financial links especially charters, mission statements, with the fossil fuel and arms industries. investment policies, and environmental This would allow the professional statements. We used publicly available organisations to properly fulfil their goal sources, such as annual reports, financial of providing responsible leadership for the statements, and organisational websites. We science and engineering community, and help found in many key areas that transparency accelerate urgently needed action to tackle was very poor, which was especially 2 IRRESPONSIBLE SCIENCE? disappointing given that openness is a Investments (section 4.1) cornerstone of scientific work. • We concluded that four PESOs held Key findings ‘very high’ levels of investments in the fossil fuel industry – the Energy Institute; In more depth, the key findings of our study EngineeringUK; the Institute of Physics; are as follows (with the numbering referring and the Royal Statistical Society. to sections in the main report). • The transparency of investments was School education programmes (section 4.2) generally very poor. For the 15 PESOs in our study that held investments, we were • Nine PESOs in this study published able to identify only where approximately teaching resources or ran school education 5% of their total assets were held (although activities that were sponsored or otherwise there was a large variation in openness directly involved fossil fuel or arms between individual PESOs). Indeed, the corporations. In most cases, details of the disclosure was generally so poor that we relationships were not transparent and we were unable to determine whether any could only find very limited information PESOs held high levels of investments in on the specific financial links between the arms industry. The two PESOs with the those education programmes and the highest investments – The Royal Society corporations concerned. and the Institution of Engineering and Technology – had some of the lowest • We concluded that three PESOs ran school levels of disclosure. education programmes which had ‘high’ or ‘very high’ levels of involvement with the • Of 20 PESOs studied, only one – the fossil fuel industry – the Royal Academy British Psychological Society – had an of Engineering, EngineeringUK, and the ethical investment policy which restricted Energy Institute. For example, the available investment in the fossil fuel or arms data showed that over 70% of the external industries. Five other PESOs held no funding received by the Royal Academy investments in these industries due to of Engineering for