Tell Public Pensions: Hold polluters accountable!

State Pensions are using our tax dollars to fuel the climate crisis by continuing to fund big oil, gas, and other polluters. But they could be a part of the solution.

In the U.S., trillions of taxpayer dollars and public workers' savings are invested in public pension funds, which promise a secure and dignified retirement for public sector employees like teachers and firefighters. Every spring, these public pension funds vote at public companies' shareholder meetings, where they elect the Board of Directors and weigh in on key issues like climate. The outcomes of these votes are key in determining whether polluters will take responsibility for their impacts.

Public pensions are some of the country’s biggest shareholders and hold a lot of voting power. Pension funds follow their proxy voting guidelines, which lay out what a pension believes are best business practices and inform how they’ll vote on key issues, like climate, at these meetings. Unfortunately, most state pensions’ guidelines don’t do enough.

Holding corporations accountable for their climate-wrecking behavior is a critical way to reduce risk to workers' retirement savings and protect our future.

To provide secure retirements for decades to come, we’ll need to help protect the economy from climate chaos. Without further action, climate change is predicted to cost the economy an unprecedented $38 trillion a year by 2049. (1)

All pensions can do more to protect pensioners from growing climate and environment-related financial risks. Strengthening proxy voting guidelines is a key way to ensure stronger climate votes in 2024 and beyond.

Take action: Send a message to your state's public pension fund to vote for climate action.

If you are a public pension member, please include that in your personal message!

1) AP, April 17, 2024, "New study calculates climate change’s economic bite will hit about $38 trillion a year by 2049."

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Pensions: Engage your power as a shareholder and address climate change

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Dear Public Pension Trustees and Staff, As stewards of our public resources and the retirement savings of many in our communities, I am calling on you to be proactive leaders in addressing the growing climate-related risks that jeopardize our economy and our savings. As a major investor, your decisions have significant influence on the practices of many companies, and on the growth and stability of the resources that you have a fiduciary duty to manage for the long-term. Your proxy voting decisions help determine whether companies have strong climate targets and implementation plans that are credibly aligned with what’s necessary to preserve a habitable planet and a prosperous future. Climate change poses major risks to our communities and our retirement investments. A growing number of financial experts predict that if global warming trajectories continue, we will lose significant economic output and investment value in the coming decades. Some US funds have taken public strides forward, such as announcing net-zero pledges, investing in climate solutions, or defending the right to invest responsibly. These are critical steps forward. However, all funds have an opportunity to strengthen their climate policies in proxy voting guidelines. I am calling on you to sharpen your proxy voting power to hold companies across key sectors accountable by updating your proxy voting guidelines with clear language to support proposals on climate action, director accountability, climate-related lobbying, Indigenous rights, biodiversity protection, and environmental justice. As public pension fund trustees and managers of public resources, you have a fiduciary responsibility to manage beneficiaries' savings in a manner that mitigates climate-related financial risks. This is your responsibility, not only to people around the world and future generations but to your current and future beneficiaries who will lose out if you do not put the long-term value of their portfolios over the short-term profits of companies wrecking the planet. The time for you to engage your full power as a shareholder to help avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis is now. Thank you.

By taking this action to protect the planet, you are affirming you want to receive regular Sierra Club communications and may vote on policy designated by the Sierra Club Board.