ANU's investment policy under fire ANU chancellor Gareth Evans says the university must balance social and financial considerations. Picture: Aaron Francis Source: TheAustralian AUSTRALIAN National University chancellor Gareth Evans has defended his institutions new socially responsible investment policy against accusations of being extremely vague. The policy, which was given the green light by the university council yesterday, pledges to avoid investments that are "considered likely to cause substantial social injury" while supporting those that do social good. Postgraduate student Tom Swann, who fronts an anti-fossil fuel lobby on the ANU campus, said the new policy was a welcome "small step forward" but "you could only give it a low credit, at best." "ANU's rhetoric of sustainability leadership will not be taken seriously while it keeps investing in coal, oil and gas that damage our health, land and climate," Mr Swann, a masters student in climate change policy said. The relevant question is whether it will actually rule anything out. We didn't see any evidence council was willing to consider the huge damage caused by fossil fuels. But Mr Evans said the university had to balance its social and investment responsibilities. "Criteria have got to be satisfied for substantial social injury and judgements have to be made about how that weighs against any other fiduciary responsibility the university has to maximise the return from the investments," Mr Evans said, noting that 60 per cent of ANU's investment portfolio was "devoted to covering future superannuation liabilities for staff." There's not a lot of room other than to be deeply serious on how to do this. At the same time as a socially responsible university you don't want to be directly contributing to socially injurious activities - and that's a matter for argument in each case. While Mr Evans told the HES that coal seam gas was "about as clean as you can get short of solar," Mr Swann said documents released to him under FOI revealed ANU had sold 323,976 shares in the coal seam gas company Metgasco earlier this year after vice-chancellor Ian Young had voiced concerns about the environmental impacts of coals seam gas mining. At the same time, ANU had increased its holdings in mining giant Santos, which also has interests in coal seam gas. When asked if the policy was too vague to be effective, Mr Evans said: "It's better than nothing, okay. And most Australian universities don't have any framework at all.