THE Borders Book Festival will no longer be sponsored by Baillie Gifford after activists called on literary festivals to end their relationship with the investment firm.
Last month, Fossil Free Books – a collective of book industry workers and authors – wrote an open letter to nine UK literary festivals calling on them to end their relationships with Baillie Gifford unless the company severed all of its ties to fossil fuel giants and “companies involved in Israeli occupation, apartheid and genocide”.
The Edinburgh International Book Festival announced that it would be ending its long-term partnership with Baillie Gifford last week after claiming that pressure from campaigners on staff had become “intolerable”.
Now, the Borders Book Festival has followed suit.
A statement released by festival bosses said: : “The directors have announced that after 2024 the Borders Book Festival will no longer be sponsored by Baillie Gifford, following protests around their sponsorship of this and other book festivals.
"We took this decision with great regret because we have enjoyed eight happy and productive years working together to make our festival better, more accessible and in particular more attractive to children and families.
"Without the support of Baillie Gifford we would not have been able to mount such a vibrant and varied children’s festival (where adults go free) and do all that we do with schools in the Borders.
"Baillie Gifford’s support has enabled us to put free books into the hands of thousands of children, and that aspect of their support will be sorely missed.
"We wish to put on record our thanks to the company for their solid and passionate support not only for our festival, its authors and audiences, but for all the book festivals across Britain who have benefitted from Baillie Gifford’s commitment to the world of books and readers.”
It mirrors Edinburgh International Book Festival chief executive Jenny Niven’s reluctance to end the partnership at the behest of campaigners.
She said that “undermining the long-term future of charitable organisations such as book festivals is not the right way to bring about change”.
Baillie Gifford said only 2% of its clients’ money was invested in fossil fuel firms and added that claims that it had significant amounts invested in the Occupied Palestinian Territories were “offensively misleading.”
However, Fossil Free Books state that the firm has between £2.5 – £5 billion invested in the fossil fuel industry, with a further £10bn invested “in companies with direct or indirect links to Israel’s defence, tech and cybersecurity industries, including Nvidia, Amazon and Alphabet”.
Following Edinburgh International Book Festival’s decision to end the partnership, Nick Thomas, a partner at Baillie Gifford, said:
“Baillie Gifford is a long-term investor with high ethical standards and a complete focus on doing what is right by our clients. 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. Demanding divestment from these global companies, used by millions of people around the world, is unreasonable and serves no purpose.
"Much as it would be unreasonable to demand authors boycott Instagram or stop selling books on Amazon.”
