By Bruce Kadalie

We cherish the idea of the university as an ivory tower—a sanctuary for independent thought, driven by evidence and dedicated to the pursuit of truth for the public good. It is a place where society’s toughest problems are examined with intellectual rigour, free from the corrupting influence of narrow commercial interests. Yet a recent and critically important forum, “The Greenwashing of SA Universities,” hosted by the Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA), systematically dismantled this comforting myth. In its place, it revealed a far more alarming reality: our premier institutions of knowledge are increasingly functioning as sophisticated greenwashing laundromats and reputation-repair centres for the very industry most responsible for our escalating planetary emergency.

The discussion, meticulously anchored by research from Fossil Free South Africa’s Steph Cookson and David Le Page, peeled back the veneer of “corporate partnership” and “research funding” to expose a deep, systemic machinery of influence. This is not a story of isolated ethical lapses, but of a structured, global playbook being executed locally. As Cookson explained, drawing on a comprehensive international study, the consequences of fossil fuel partnerships with universities are devastatingly clear. They lead to “fossil fuel-friendly policies,” a “greener public image (greenwashing),” and critically, the “suppressing [of] research that promotes the transition to renewable energy.”

Perhaps the most insidious consequence is what the study terms “‘petro-education’ of students, which often promotes climate denialism subtly.” This is not about overt propaganda, but a more profound capture of the curriculum and research agenda. Cookson quoted a chilling 1978 industry manual that advised: “Co-opting academics and identifying the leading experts in each relevant field and hiring them as consultants or advisors or giving them research grants. It must not be too blatant, for the experts themselves must not recognize that they have lost their objectivity.” This is the heart of the strategy: to make complicity feel like collaboration, and to ensure the guardians of knowledge become, unwittingly or not, the legitimisers of delay and obfuscation.

The research paper underpinning the forum—a work in progress by Fossil Free South Africa—acts as the crucial local translation of this global playbook. Cookson detailed a preliminary review of publicly available partnerships in South Africa, a list that reads like a who’s who of polluters embedded in academia: the R150 million Sasol-NRF cooperation funding chairs at multiple universities; Shell’s endowed Chair of Environmental Studies at UCT dating back to 1973; Exxaro and Anglo American funding coal technology research; and a web of bursaries and sponsorships across institutions from DUT to Stellenbosch. “The question for us,” Cookson pointedly asked, “is, what is happening that we don’t have public access to?” This enforced opacity is the lifeblood of greenwashing. It allows a company like Sasol—which, as Cookson noted, is “doubling down on coal” and operates in Louisiana’s infamous “Cancer Alley,” a region of profound human rights violations—to simultaneously paint itself as a renewables leader on South African campuses, sponsoring student exchanges and funding “green” energy research.

David Le Page then masterfully connected these institutional compromises to the broader economic and existential threats. He dismantled the fossil fuel industry’s primary line of defence: economic blackmail. Confronting the pervasive myth that fossil fuels are essential for development and jobs in a country like South Africa, he presented devastating counter-evidence. “We have to understand,” he stated, that “for every current, present-day job in the fossil fuel industry, 3 jobs will be lost by 2030 due to climate change.” The idea that slowing the transition protects workers is, therefore, “absolutely nonsensical. The more we slow down the transition, the more we destroy jobs.”

In place of this destructive and centralised model, Le Page advocated for a radical reimagining: an “energy democracy.” This would be a system “that meets the needs of all, rather than the desires of a few elites,” one that is “mostly renewable, community-led and owned,” and based on “science and evidence, rather than cherry-picked data and greenwashing.” This vision frames the fight not as one of sacrifice, but of liberation from a captured economic model that worsens inequality and climate vulnerability simultaneously.

The responses from Open Secrets’ Zen Mathe and Luthando Vilakazi provided the essential historical and political grounding for this analysis, rooting it in South Africa’s specific legacy of corporate power. Vilakazi, reflecting from her perspective as a former student activist, argued that the fossil fuel influence cannot be extricated from the broader commodification of education. “Until we are able to really deal with the question of how our universities have not been decolonized, but also have been successfully commodifying education,” she contended, “it will be difficult to undo the ways the fossil fuel industry has firmly established itself.”

She further probed the racialised dimensions of this corporate capture, asking why fossil fuel companies seem concentrated at historically white universities. “Why are fossil fuel companies seemingly concentrated within historically white universities or universities that garner more recognition in international academic spaces?… It’s kind of clear that the way capitalism works will align with where elites and power are concentrated.” This insight reframes the issue from one of mere ethical oversight to one of reproducing historical inequalities. Vilakazi also painted a vivid picture of how this capture operates at the granular level, describing her first day in UCT’s law faculty where a corporate lawyer framed success purely in terms of personal wealth. This,she argued, shapes a graduate’s worldview, aligning it with corporate bottom lines over democratic values.

Zen expanded this critique to describe the broader “conveyor belt” between corporations and campuses. “You get funding to attend a specific university and study a specific degree, over the years you’re invited to corporate dinners, introduced to a lifestyle, and thereafter you’re paying them back by working there.” This cycle ensures a steady pipeline of talent ideologically aligned with corporate interests. Crucially, she connected this to Open Secrets’ historical work on apartheid-era economic crime, like sanctions busting. “This is not new behavior,” they stressed. “The minerals-energy complex underpinned the apartheid economy, enriched a network of powerful corporations and white elites while financing the regime.” The current fight over fossil fuel influence is thus a direct continuation of the struggle against an entrenched system of power that has always placed private profit over public and planetary well-being.

Faced with the scale of this embedded, historical power, the forum wisely steered away from despair and toward actionable, multi-level strategy. The first and foundational step, as David Le Page asserted, is “much greater transparency. I don’t think most people understand the full dimensions of this influence.” Forcing public registries of funding and partnerships is a non-negotiable first victory.

The second front is sustained, localized campus activism. Cookson provided the definitive case study: the decade-long campaign that finally pushed UCT to commit to fossil fuel divestment in 2022. This victory, hard-won, has had tangible effects, leading to mandates on asset managers and new emissions frameworks. “None of this would have happened,” she emphasized, “without the divestment commitment, which wouldn’t have happened without key champion academics, staff, civil society, and students who showed up with placards, signed on, came to screenings, joined WhatsApp groups, came to meetings.” Her plea was for consistent, mundane engagement: showing up to comment periods, joining platforms like their Climate Leadership Platform, and using existing university governance structures. “The fossil fuel industry’s voice is louder,” she noted, “because they show up more consistently in these rooms.”

The discussion also reached beyond the campus gates. Le Page pointed to the “profound issues of democracy” at the national level, specifically the corrupting influence of private money on politics, calling for caps on corporate political funding. Luthando Vilakazi added a crucial legal dimension, suggesting leveraging existing climate legislation like the Climate Change Act to hold state-funded universities accountable.

In her closing remarks, Zen powerfully tied all these threads together, framing the moment as a historic inflection point. The struggle, they said, is “an opportunity to redress how things are built and shift radically… This conversation is important because this might be the final chance for meaningful change and a just transition.” This is no longer just an environmental issue; it is the frontline for decolonising knowledge, democratising the economy, and breaking the century-long stranglehold of the minerals-energy complex.

From IFAA’s view,  this forum exemplifies our mssion  to  move the conversation about climate action from abstract emissions targets to the very real sites where consent for delay is manufactured and where future leaders are shaped.  Our mandate is urgent: to publish and propagate these outcomes so that this narrative “find[s] its way into the national conversation.” We must stop seeing our universities as passive victims and recognize them as contested terrain. The question is no longer if they are influenced, but whom they ultimately serve: the short-term profits of a dying industry, or the long-term viability of a just and livable future? Their integrity, and our survival, depends on the answer.