Hollywood Stars Press Pension Plan to Sell Fossil-Fuel Assets

Top Hollywood actors are teaming up with activist groups to pressure the leading entertainment union, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), to drop fossil-fuel investments from one of its pension plans.

SAG-AFTRA has about 160,000 members and offers different pension plans, dating to before the merger of SAG and AFTRA. The new campaign is targeting trustees of the SAG-Producers Pension Plan, which has assets of about $5 billion. It has at least $100 million invested in fossil fuels, according to an analysis by Sphere, which promotes climate-friendly retirement investments.

The campaign, called Retire Big Oil, will be announced Tuesday. It is led by prominent actors including Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, Don Cheadle and Rosario Dawson, working in conjunction with groups that promote pension divestment, such as Stand.earth and its affiliate network Climate Safe Pensions.

The idea for the campaign emerged at last year’s Sun Valley Forum in Idaho, and since then, SAG-AFTRA members have engaged pension executives behind the scenes, according to Richard Brooks, the climate finance director at Stand.earth. The wildfires that ravaged Los Angeles in January were a catalyst to move forward with a more public form of organization and pressure.

“As LA rebuilds from devastating wildfires, and with fossil-fueled fire season now existing year-round, the SAG-Producers Pension Plan has the opportunity to lead in securing a sustainable future,” said Todd Paglia, Stand.earth’s executive director.

A spokesperson for the SAG-Producers Pension Plan said in a statement that climate change “can indeed be a factor influencing investment performance, and our professional active investment managers and consultants integrate these considerations into their risk and return analyses. We always welcome open dialogue with plan participants, and we continue to work with our professional advisers to ensure our investments are both financially sound and responsibly managed.”

Climate campaigners have put increased pressure on pension funds in recent years to divest from fossil fuels, and some pension funds are opting not to follow Wall Street’s broader retreat from sustainable commitments. The New York City Employees’ Retirement System, for example, joined the UN-convened Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance late last year. Canadian pension fund Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec last week pledged $400 billion in low-carbon investments by 2030.

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This article first appeared in Bloomberg here.