In January of 2021, former “Tatler” editors-in-chief Evie B. ’22 and Aaron Z. ’23 wrote an in-depth report on Lakeside’s progress toward sustainability. Their key findings were that a majority of students believed the school was “neither significantly environmentally unsustainable nor significantly sustainable,” Lakesiders’ engagement with environmentalism was “falling behind” that of peer schools, and despite visible efforts on campus to combat climate change, just three of 158 funds in the school endowment specifically supported green initiatives.
Three years on from that report, what is Lakeside doing differently?
For one, the administration has begun to put its eco-friendly aspirations into financial practice. In interviews, Lakeside’s Chief Financial Officer Birage Tandon highlighted how values like sustainability now guide investment strategy: “[It’s] not something we used to do even five years ago.” Picking up on a growing movement towards ethical investing, the school has started using ESG criteria, or environmental, social, and governance standards, to evaluate whether money spent by the school is generating positive change.
Thanks to that administrative effort, Lakeside’s stake in clean energy funds has become “much higher” than ever before. By December 2021, the school had sold off any shares held in the top 100 oil and gas companies and instead bought into climate change solutions businesses. At that time, funds earning some revenue from alternative energy and energy efficiency services constituted 11.6 percent of the total investment portfolio. And by December 2023, Molecule Ventures, an New York City–based group in the business of purchasing carbon credits, represented an impressive 4.3% alone of the school’s total portfolio.
Though Lakeside has increasingly utilized eco-friendly investments to generate positive income and outcomes alike, it’s not quite off the fossil fuel hook. Tax forms reveal that Lakeside still holds a stake in the billion-dollar Denham Oil & Gas Fund, which specializes in pipeline infrastructure and the upstream distribution of oil, gas, and coal. Compared to Molecule, Denham constitutes a far smaller portion of the total portfolio — 0.9% in December 2023 — but given the size of school assets, that percentage still shakes out to several millions of dollars.
Other funds in the portfolio, like Commonfund Capital Natural Resources, orient themselves towards raw inputs like oil, metals, and mining. In 2020, Lakeside earned $382,000 by selling its holdings in the Tortoise Commingled Fund, a private partnership with a major stake in the U.S. liquefied natural gas market.
Lakeside’s diminished but enduring investments in oil and gas seem to contradict the progress the school has otherwise achieved in sustainability. Why continue spending in the sector? Explains Ms. Tandon, fossil fuel funds are part of a “balancing act” faced by the school and its advisers between ethics and insurance against economic downturns. “When it comes to investments, there’s a reason to have some diversification, which includes some oil and gas … We [Lakeside School] want to keep Denham.”
Yet even as Lakeside remains committed to its financial policy, national sentiment is changing. Over the past 10 years, a student-led movement to divest from fossil fuels has swept college campuses, raising important questions about education’s role in a changing climate. What responsibility should schools — society’s most forward-thinking institutions — have to promote sustainability? And when, if not now, is the right time to decommit from oil and gas? “As there’s more movement towards other sources of energy, it’ll become profitable to invest in those,” says Ms. Tandon, describing Lakeside’s follow-the-market approach to money management. “In the end, our goal is to grow our corpus. Not in any kind of unethical or damaging way, but … to protect the corpus and to grow it, so we can use the returns from those investments to run the school.”
While Lakeside has been hesitant to cut its fossil fuel ties, the school is readily embracing green initiatives on campus. Recent projects have included a switch to LED light bulbs, the purchase of electric vehicles and lawnmowers, and annual energy efficiency benchmarking of the facilities.
Now, sustainability figures to play an even bigger part in Lakeside’s future. Since Dr. Kai Bynum joined as the new Head of School, the administration has been formulating a “strategic plan” that will guide the school’s objectives and operations for years to come. While Ms. Tandon couldn’t comment on the plan’s specifics, she mentioned that sustainability was “really coming up” in discussions, much more often than at the last strategic planning session in 2004.
Already, this re-prioritization is featured in the administration’s upcoming initiatives. Look no further than last month’s issue, where “Tatler” broke news of a new facility for English and science classrooms, set to start construction before year’s end. Ten years ago, it took a student-led proposal and presentation to put a $135,000 solar panel installation on the AAC, which was then under extensive renovation. Now, the latest addition to campus will quietly receive its own solar panels, as well as more efficient temperature control and outdoor drainage systems.
This past month, the administration also notified parents and guardians of imminent changes to the food services program. Starting this summer, Lakeside will partner with SAGE Dining Services, a food provider for independent schools across the country, to prepare all lunchtime meals. The decision was made in part because the SAGE model is “structured to produce less food waste” and eliminate pre-plated entrees, according to the announcement. And while current arrangements offer multiple avenues of reducing landfill waste—biodegradable utensils, sorted waste bins, condiment pump dispensers — SAGE may introduce some novel ways to minimize the kitchen’s environmental impact, from recycling cooking oil into biodiesel to potentially growing an herb garden on campus. (Note: Full coverage of the switch to SAGE Dining and its impacts on meal options, tuition, and staff will appear in a later “Tatler” issue.)
But to confront a challenge as globally destructive as climate change, it will take still greater efforts to shrink the school’s environmental footprint. That may come from students making lifestyle changes, like opting for public transportation and throwing away less food, or administrators implementing larger policy shifts. Dr. Bynum’s strategic plan — to be released by the end of this school year — will determine whether sustainability becomes a defining principle of Lakeside’s future operations. And at some point, the school’s investment committee will have to reconsider the social impact and financial viability of retaining its stake in fossil fuels.
Regardless, meaningful change must come incrementally. Says Ms. Tandon, “We can only take one step at a time.”
