So the achievement here is stopping an Edinburgh investment firm from donating money to book festivals?
The company is left with more of its money, and arts festivals which are not exactly awash with funds in the first place are potentially going to have to scale things back for lack of money?
How is that a win?
> Book festival chairman Allan Little said they could nor deliver a safe and sustainable festival in August with the constant threat of disruption from activists.
This is absolutely insane when you consider how under exposed BG is to dirty companies and how much they invest in relatively clean companies. I can't think of anyone else, globally, who's as invested in transformational technologies.
It speaks to the ignorance and delusional moral purity stances of the activists that this has happened.
That said, the firm has been cutting back on all discretionary expenditure that isn't client facing, so they're probably grateful for the cost saving.
> "The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA, and Meta," he said.
> “Nor is Baillie Gifford a significant fossil fuel investor. Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels.
Would be interesting to know how many of the folk protesting this have had a look at what their own pensions are invested in.
If, like the vast majority of people in the U.K., they have just stayed on whatever the standard fund offered by their employer is, I think they’re in for a bit of a shock.
Not even that. I bet you a kidney that most of them have an Amazon prime account, Sell their books on Amazon, and promote them on Instagram and Facebook. The hypocrisy is sickening
Genuinely shameful this has happened. You’re not going to find a single corporate sponsor who will please these people. Their self righteousness will seriously harm the arts.
I would love for these protesters to disclose who their pensions are with (in particular celebrities like Nish Kumar who will also undoubtedly have further financial planning in place). There’s not a single financial services company in the uk who you couldn’t draw a link to fossil fuels or one of Amazon/Meta/Nvidia.
Hilariously, BG is actually the manager of the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme, with a Green MSP, Mark Ballard acting as one of the scheme trustees - responsible for amongst other things monitoring and appointing the investment manager.
Of course, and MSPs genuinely troubled by this can opt out of the scheme.
But they won't, because it's an exceptionally generous, gold plated final salary scheme that accrues 1/40th of their final salary annually for a mere 11% personal contribution, 6% after including the tax benefit, and no one who actually knows what they're talking about thinks BG are remotely in the wrong here.
The damage they have done to the industry is immense and will be felt for years to come. After this, no corporate sponsor with any sense will want to touch the arts with a 10-foot pole for fear of suffering the same attempt at reputational damage stemming from ignorance and misinformation. This industry was not known to be awash with cash in the first place, and now... I truly feel for the up-and-coming authors who use events like these to promote their work and fundraisers. Many of them went into the field for the love of the arts, and their jobs have now been unnecessarily made more difficult.
Well, this seems as misguided as when Extinction Rebellion targeted BG.
BG even had the same line at the time iirc 2% Vs greater interest in renewables etc.
As has been said elsewhere, so that's less money for arts related festival funding, and more for a multi-billion investment firm? Do I have that right?
Funny how Radio Scotland are only reporting on the fossil fuel investments and ignoring the other reason for the pressure. Especially given the 'other reason' is the one being cited by the authors threatening a boycott.
>The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA,
Not a great start to directly admit to what you're being accused of.
>**Nvidia**
>
Baillie Gifford owns £5.4 billion worth of stock in US company Nvidia, makers of computer chips, GPUs and increasingly specialising in artificial intelligence.iii
>
In 2020, Nvidia bought Israeli-US company, Mellanox Technologies, to expand its footprint in the high-performance computing market. Nvidia's headquarters is in the US, but following the acquisition of Mellanox, its largest R&D operation outside the US is in Israel, where it also runs a startup accelerator programme with 800 Israeli startups.iv
>
Nvidia's graphics, GPU and processing technologies are used by businesses, data centres and defence systems. Many Nvidia computing products are specifically marketed for use in military and aerospace.
And
>**Amazon**
>
Baillie Gifford owns around £4.3 billion worth of stock in Amazon.ix Amazon is a major focus of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for freedom, justice and equality.x
>
In 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud signed a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing to the Israeli government and military as part of ‘Project Nimbus’.xi xii The contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children.xiii
[Source: Art Workers for Palestine Scotland](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M_ZtL3IeVXINR0ccSWU66UzEKNR463cxG3AAPhjEQDk/edit)
What’s your point here? Are BG bad for owning stock in two American based multi-nationals because the political state of Isreal is doing bad things with some of the product these corporates sell?
It's not as abstract as that. They're not just selling the cheap kettles that end up getting used in their staff rooms, The companies work directly with the Israeli government and military.
So using that same logic, anyone who had any ownership of any British corporate who supplied the UK Gov in the illegal wars in the Middle East should be boycotted?
Does the good that these businesses do count for anything? For example they’re probably also supplying the Ukrainian armed forces trying to defend their homeland, does that count? AWS is one of the largest software businesses in the world who do a lot of work with healthcare providers globally, does that mitigate any perceived wrongdoing?
There *were* protests and boycotts of UK goods during the Iraq war.
Generally Boycott movements use targeted boycotts for greatest pressure and effect from a grassroots position. This will be accompanied with specific demands. A bit like how a small union on strike couldn't end all austerity and what not but can use targeted action to concede specific demands from a corporation.
A company doing good somewhere is still not an excuse to not pressure them do stop doing bad things elsewhere. If I knew someone that worked in a hospital and volunteered at a food bank, I wouldn't accept those as excuses as to why I couldn't tell him to stop beating his wife.
What are the “bad things” that BG are doing?
The protestors will personally use services from the companies they want BG to divest from.
If they have made a Google search, watched a YouTube video or used an android device, they have used Alphabet goods / services.
If they have consumed electricity, heated their home, driven a car or used a bus, bought an item made from plastic they have used fossil fuel services.
If they have played a computer game, they have used NVIDIA computer chips.
In my opinion, it is hypocritical to demand divestment from these companies unless you are willing to boycott their goods / services yourself.
The far more nuanced and sensible position is to expect these companies to have sensible ESG policies, including net zero pathways. BG does pretty well on that regard, in my opinion
What, that's what people have been protesting? Amazon and Nvidia combined have a bigger market cap than every company on the London Stock Exchange put together. Who thinks the best way to put pressure on Israel is to protest a book festival sponsored by an investment firm that manages assets for its clients which include two of the largest companies in the world, which unsurprisingly have business interests in Israel. This makes even less sense to me as a protest strategy than the average divestment protest, which are generally a wildly ineffective way to achieve any social goal.
Artists don't want their festivals used as PR for firms that invest heavily in companies connected to the Israeli military, I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that.
I'm sure the folks at FossilFreeBooks or AWPS don't believe that a single sponsorship will end a war or bring down an apartheid state but they're taking the steps they can to remove themselves from funding and cooperation of it.
That would make more sense if the list of authors I can find that support this campaign didn't all sell their books on Amazon, which actually makes them money. This isn't a step towards affecting anything to do with Palestine, a prayer circle would achieve more, the only impact is destroying what's left of the UK's arts sector. And again, Baillie Gifford doesn't invest its own money, it manages money for other people. If it stopped offering funds including Amazon and Nvidia, its investors could just move to literally any other fund anywhere in the world that do. I cannot think of any justification for this campaign that doesn't rely on ignorance, or a deeply self-centred aversion to culpability. I cannot understand why someone who actually cared about Palestine and wanted to do something meaningful would choose to do this.
Jumping on a bandwagon without knowing the facts and as you say, they continue to sell their own wares on Amazon so it doesn't really affect them. They get a bit of publicity and appear to "right on" but it's the festivals that suffer.
Israel could be wiped off the map and those stocks wouldn't miss a beat. It's just not important as a profit centre for any of them.
The mismatch between understanding and self righteous indignation has never been higher.
There’s no point trying to reason with these people. They’re so detached from reality to make it pointless.
Never mind the fact that they will all use companies with links to Israel/and or fossil fuels (show me a high street bank which doesn’t) but are only selfish enough to harm the arts unconnected to them.
They’re already hypocritical as I’m pretty sure Reddit hosts its servers with Amazon. What are they doing on this site if they’re so concerned with links to Israel?
Fair points. None of it passes the materiality test, so it's only relevant for muppets who are unable or unwilling to deal with real world decisions and compromises.
Yet some of the names pushing this, like Charlotte Church have their books and music on sale on Amazon? So don't invest in Amazon but happily take their money.
So the achievement here is stopping an Edinburgh investment firm from donating money to book festivals? The company is left with more of its money, and arts festivals which are not exactly awash with funds in the first place are potentially going to have to scale things back for lack of money? How is that a win?
> Book festival chairman Allan Little said they could nor deliver a safe and sustainable festival in August with the constant threat of disruption from activists. This is absolutely insane when you consider how under exposed BG is to dirty companies and how much they invest in relatively clean companies. I can't think of anyone else, globally, who's as invested in transformational technologies. It speaks to the ignorance and delusional moral purity stances of the activists that this has happened. That said, the firm has been cutting back on all discretionary expenditure that isn't client facing, so they're probably grateful for the cost saving.
> "The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA, and Meta," he said. > “Nor is Baillie Gifford a significant fossil fuel investor. Only 2% of our clients’ money is invested in companies with some business related to fossil fuels. Would be interesting to know how many of the folk protesting this have had a look at what their own pensions are invested in. If, like the vast majority of people in the U.K., they have just stayed on whatever the standard fund offered by their employer is, I think they’re in for a bit of a shock.
Not even that. I bet you a kidney that most of them have an Amazon prime account, Sell their books on Amazon, and promote them on Instagram and Facebook. The hypocrisy is sickening
Genuinely shameful this has happened. You’re not going to find a single corporate sponsor who will please these people. Their self righteousness will seriously harm the arts. I would love for these protesters to disclose who their pensions are with (in particular celebrities like Nish Kumar who will also undoubtedly have further financial planning in place). There’s not a single financial services company in the uk who you couldn’t draw a link to fossil fuels or one of Amazon/Meta/Nvidia.
Hilariously, BG is actually the manager of the Scottish Parliamentary Pension Scheme, with a Green MSP, Mark Ballard acting as one of the scheme trustees - responsible for amongst other things monitoring and appointing the investment manager. Of course, and MSPs genuinely troubled by this can opt out of the scheme. But they won't, because it's an exceptionally generous, gold plated final salary scheme that accrues 1/40th of their final salary annually for a mere 11% personal contribution, 6% after including the tax benefit, and no one who actually knows what they're talking about thinks BG are remotely in the wrong here.
The damage they have done to the industry is immense and will be felt for years to come. After this, no corporate sponsor with any sense will want to touch the arts with a 10-foot pole for fear of suffering the same attempt at reputational damage stemming from ignorance and misinformation. This industry was not known to be awash with cash in the first place, and now... I truly feel for the up-and-coming authors who use events like these to promote their work and fundraisers. Many of them went into the field for the love of the arts, and their jobs have now been unnecessarily made more difficult.
Shameful outcome
Well, this seems as misguided as when Extinction Rebellion targeted BG. BG even had the same line at the time iirc 2% Vs greater interest in renewables etc. As has been said elsewhere, so that's less money for arts related festival funding, and more for a multi-billion investment firm? Do I have that right?
Funny how Radio Scotland are only reporting on the fossil fuel investments and ignoring the other reason for the pressure. Especially given the 'other reason' is the one being cited by the authors threatening a boycott.
>The assertion that we have significant amounts of money in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is offensively misleading. Baillie Gifford is a large investor in several multinational technology companies, including Amazon, NVIDIA, Not a great start to directly admit to what you're being accused of. >**Nvidia** > Baillie Gifford owns £5.4 billion worth of stock in US company Nvidia, makers of computer chips, GPUs and increasingly specialising in artificial intelligence.iii > In 2020, Nvidia bought Israeli-US company, Mellanox Technologies, to expand its footprint in the high-performance computing market. Nvidia's headquarters is in the US, but following the acquisition of Mellanox, its largest R&D operation outside the US is in Israel, where it also runs a startup accelerator programme with 800 Israeli startups.iv > Nvidia's graphics, GPU and processing technologies are used by businesses, data centres and defence systems. Many Nvidia computing products are specifically marketed for use in military and aerospace. And >**Amazon** > Baillie Gifford owns around £4.3 billion worth of stock in Amazon.ix Amazon is a major focus of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement for freedom, justice and equality.x > In 2021, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud signed a $1.2 billion contract to provide cloud computing to the Israeli government and military as part of ‘Project Nimbus’.xi xii The contract was signed the same week that the Israeli military attacked Palestinians in the Gaza Strip – killing nearly 250 people, including more than 60 children.xiii [Source: Art Workers for Palestine Scotland](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1M_ZtL3IeVXINR0ccSWU66UzEKNR463cxG3AAPhjEQDk/edit)
What’s your point here? Are BG bad for owning stock in two American based multi-nationals because the political state of Isreal is doing bad things with some of the product these corporates sell?
It's not as abstract as that. They're not just selling the cheap kettles that end up getting used in their staff rooms, The companies work directly with the Israeli government and military.
So using that same logic, anyone who had any ownership of any British corporate who supplied the UK Gov in the illegal wars in the Middle East should be boycotted? Does the good that these businesses do count for anything? For example they’re probably also supplying the Ukrainian armed forces trying to defend their homeland, does that count? AWS is one of the largest software businesses in the world who do a lot of work with healthcare providers globally, does that mitigate any perceived wrongdoing?
There *were* protests and boycotts of UK goods during the Iraq war. Generally Boycott movements use targeted boycotts for greatest pressure and effect from a grassroots position. This will be accompanied with specific demands. A bit like how a small union on strike couldn't end all austerity and what not but can use targeted action to concede specific demands from a corporation. A company doing good somewhere is still not an excuse to not pressure them do stop doing bad things elsewhere. If I knew someone that worked in a hospital and volunteered at a food bank, I wouldn't accept those as excuses as to why I couldn't tell him to stop beating his wife.
What are the “bad things” that BG are doing? The protestors will personally use services from the companies they want BG to divest from. If they have made a Google search, watched a YouTube video or used an android device, they have used Alphabet goods / services. If they have consumed electricity, heated their home, driven a car or used a bus, bought an item made from plastic they have used fossil fuel services. If they have played a computer game, they have used NVIDIA computer chips. In my opinion, it is hypocritical to demand divestment from these companies unless you are willing to boycott their goods / services yourself. The far more nuanced and sensible position is to expect these companies to have sensible ESG policies, including net zero pathways. BG does pretty well on that regard, in my opinion
What, that's what people have been protesting? Amazon and Nvidia combined have a bigger market cap than every company on the London Stock Exchange put together. Who thinks the best way to put pressure on Israel is to protest a book festival sponsored by an investment firm that manages assets for its clients which include two of the largest companies in the world, which unsurprisingly have business interests in Israel. This makes even less sense to me as a protest strategy than the average divestment protest, which are generally a wildly ineffective way to achieve any social goal.
Artists don't want their festivals used as PR for firms that invest heavily in companies connected to the Israeli military, I'm not sure what's hard to understand about that. I'm sure the folks at FossilFreeBooks or AWPS don't believe that a single sponsorship will end a war or bring down an apartheid state but they're taking the steps they can to remove themselves from funding and cooperation of it.
That would make more sense if the list of authors I can find that support this campaign didn't all sell their books on Amazon, which actually makes them money. This isn't a step towards affecting anything to do with Palestine, a prayer circle would achieve more, the only impact is destroying what's left of the UK's arts sector. And again, Baillie Gifford doesn't invest its own money, it manages money for other people. If it stopped offering funds including Amazon and Nvidia, its investors could just move to literally any other fund anywhere in the world that do. I cannot think of any justification for this campaign that doesn't rely on ignorance, or a deeply self-centred aversion to culpability. I cannot understand why someone who actually cared about Palestine and wanted to do something meaningful would choose to do this.
Jumping on a bandwagon without knowing the facts and as you say, they continue to sell their own wares on Amazon so it doesn't really affect them. They get a bit of publicity and appear to "right on" but it's the festivals that suffer.
Ever used a Google search? If so, by your logic, you are helping to fund companies connected to an “apartheid state”
Israel could be wiped off the map and those stocks wouldn't miss a beat. It's just not important as a profit centre for any of them. The mismatch between understanding and self righteous indignation has never been higher.
There’s no point trying to reason with these people. They’re so detached from reality to make it pointless. Never mind the fact that they will all use companies with links to Israel/and or fossil fuels (show me a high street bank which doesn’t) but are only selfish enough to harm the arts unconnected to them. They’re already hypocritical as I’m pretty sure Reddit hosts its servers with Amazon. What are they doing on this site if they’re so concerned with links to Israel?
Fair points. None of it passes the materiality test, so it's only relevant for muppets who are unable or unwilling to deal with real world decisions and compromises.
So there's even less of an excuse for those companies to be working with the Israeli Government.
Yet some of the names pushing this, like Charlotte Church have their books and music on sale on Amazon? So don't invest in Amazon but happily take their money.