The new investment policy would exclude investment in companies involved with the extraction or production of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas.
Councilman David Joyner says he wanted to see the city enact this climate-focused policy in a scalable way.
“I want us to be structuring our strategy so that it aligns with some of our goals, especially around reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, which we talked about at an agenda briefing just yesterday.”
Finance staff said they looked closely at their existing investment strategy, and drafted a resolution aimed specifically at corporate investments.
The policy does still allow the city to put money into investment pools, like state-level portfolios that have some portion invested in fossil fuel companies. Councilmember Luke Waddell said he opposed the proposal.
Waddell said, “I think I’m gonna prefer to stay focused on the fundamentals and the things that are going to give us the highest return.”
Joyner responded that the city doesn’t have to actually divest that much — it was already not heavily invested in fossil fuel companies.
The resolution passed on a party-line vote, with Republicans Waddell and Charlie Rivenbark opposed.
