ABOUT.

Who We Are.

We were founded out of the University of Toronto divestment movement in Fall of 2022 with the goal of ending the toxic relationship between the fossil fuel industry and the University of Toronto.

Over the past year, we have a grown from an organization of only four people to over 200. We successfully kicked RBC off of our campus once their lease ends in 2025 and pushed Victoria University to divest from fossil fuels. We have so much more left to do.

We are funded by OPIRG (Ontario Public Interest Research Group).

History.

In October 2021, UofT President Meric Gertler announced that UofT will divest its $4.0 bill endowment from investments in fossil fuel companies by the end of 2030. This statement represented a staunch reversal of course, as less than six years earlier President Gertler publicly rejected his ad hoc committee’s recommendation for targeted divestment.

UofT’s decision to divest from fossil fuels was the direct result of nearly decades long campaign by UofT students, faculty and staff.

A comprehensive and in depth timeline of UofT’s Fossil Fuel Divestment Campaign (from 2012 to 2021) was created by UofT alumni (and former Leap Member) Amanda Harvey-Sanchez, and is intended as an archive of the work that several generations of students, faculty, and staff put into the campaign.

Amanda also co-hosted and co-produced the ‘Divestment Generation” mini series, a five episode series exploring the 9 year campaign to win fossil fuel divestment at the University of Toronto. This mini-series emerges from Amanda’s doctoral research tentatively entitled “Actualizing Everything: Affective Activism, Effective Politics, and the Future of Climate Justice Organizing in Canada”

Gallery.

We had a busy year! We succeeded in evicting RBC from campus as of 2025. Following our sit-in at the RBC branch on-campus, the UTSU voted to no longer partner with RBC or to renew their lease in 2025. Our school year culminated in the occupation of Old Vic resulting for 18-days. This was the longest occupation in the University of Toronto history and ended with Victoria University committing to divest by 2030. Here are some of these moments captured on film.