Monday, April 4, 2016
Despite Legacy Connections, Rockefeller Family Fund Sets Trend by Changing its Fossil Fuel Investments
One by one, the descendants of John D Rockefeller, the Gilded Age oil baron, are repudiating the fossil fuels that made the family rich.
On the heels of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in 2014, the Rockefeller Family Fund, the charitable vehicle of another arm of the family, announced last month that it would be divesting its shares in coal producers and oil and gas explorers, including ExxonMobil, the modern descendent of their patriarch’s monopolistic money machine, Standard Oil.
“While the global community works to eliminate the use of fossil fuels, it makes little sense — financially or ethically — to continue holding investments in these companies,” the Family Fund’s trustees wrote. . .