TIAA is the largest institutional owner of industrial farmland and timberland, with millions of acres for extractive agribusiness on four continents (in the US, Brazil, Eastern Europe, and Australia) worth over $11 billion, and which have been tied to land grabbing, widespread deforestation, destructive chemical monocrop agriculture, and corporate domination of agriculture. TIAA plans to acquire even more land in the Global South to be able to generate carbon credits instead of divesting from fossil fuels, even though they are simply consolidating land for large-scale industrial agriculture and the timber industry.

The company has built a reputation as a socially responsible investor, but in reality, it is a leader in climate greenwashing. It has pledged to achieve Net Zero carbon emissions by 2050, but it has refused to divest the $70 billion is has invested in fossil fuel companies and fossil fuel infrastructure and is instead claiming that the company will offset its emissions through carbon credits. However, unlike other companies, TIAA wants to generate its own offsets and its own carbon credits.

We are demanding that TIAA divest from its fossil fuel and land holdings by 2025, in order to keep the planet on track to contain global warming to 1.5 degrees C.