Want to go fossil free with your investments? Help is on the way

New Web Tool Aims to Help You Divest from Fossil Fuel Stocks

A nonprofit is launching a website to help investors scour their 401k plans for stocks in fossil fuel companies and other assets at odds with the climate.

By Naveena Sadasivam, InsideClimate News
Sep 15, 2015

Divesting on a personal level may have just gotten a little easier. Credit: Light Brigading via Flickr

If you ever wondered how much of your future fortune––your retirement fund––is tied to the fortunes of fossil fuels, now there’s an app for that too.

Andrew Behar, who runs a foundation that promotes socially responsible investing, shared your curiosity. So he sat down at his computer to figure out how much of his retirement fund depended on the growth and success of fossil fuel companies. What he discovered was disturbing. And what he came up with is FossilFreeFunds.org.

It’s a web platform that makes it easier for investors to assess the holdings in their portfolios. It was a natural project for Behar, who is chief executive of As You Sow, a 23-year-old nonprofit in Oakland, Calif., which promotes shareholder activism and dialogue with corporations.

Behar spent days sifting through federal securities databases and creating spreadsheets in an effort to track down every last fossil fuel company in his 401k plan. Ultimately, after a bit of coding help from a coworker, he came to a startling realization, he says: "We were up to our necks in fossil fuels and we didn’t know it."

(More here.)