Celebrities Push Their Union To Divest Its Pension Plans From Fossil Fuels

As we watch our favorite actors on our small and large screens, we envision their lavish personal lives — mansions, lap pools, chauffeurs. Perhaps that is a reality for a choice few. According to US News & World Report, however, the median actor salary is just under $47,000. That means when their careers are over, the majority of actors rely heavily on their pension plans for financial stability.

Top industry actors are teaming up with activist groups to pressure 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, which has about $5 billion in assets and at least $100 million invested in fossil fuels.

The campaign is called Retire Big Oil. It is led by prominent actors including Mark Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, and Don Cheadle.

Where pension plans invest the funds with which they are entrusted is important. The reality of energy investments is that clean energy is now the least costly form of new generation to build. Technology like battery storage is helping to make solar and wind more practical. These are facts.

Supporting Big Oil flies in the face of all evidence about how essential clean energy is to ensuring energy security, safeguarding communities, protecting our planet’s health, and assuring the value of retirement investments.

In the late 1990s, a trend was for new waves of investment counselors to be “trusted financial advisors” to individuals and groups. With the subsequent rise and fall of markets, investors are more involved than ever in supervising where their funds are invested; in fact, research indicates that there is a predominance of value-alignment preferences among investors.

That moral-focused investment pattern includes divestment from fossil fuels, which carry real financial risks. Over the past few years, a growing divestment movement of institutional and individual investors representing trillions in assets under management have responded to this climate risk by divesting all or some of their fossil fuel investments.

According to the International Energy Agency, some $2 trillion was targeted for investments in clean energy technologies in 2024, up from $1.9 trillion in 2023. This upward trend seems promising on first glance, with the increasing damage that climate pollution is wreaking on our world. Then again, more than $1 trillion was scheduled for investments in coal, gas, and oil in 2024.

The IEA reminds us that any funds going to hydrocarbon investment are not available for green investment. Moreover, it is increasingly likely that hydrocarbon assets will become stranded as a result of rapid technical and policy change, with serious consequences for financial stability.

Eligibility For Pension Plans

SAG-AFTRA has about 160,000 members and offers different pension plans. These pension plans are designed to ensure that actors who have worked in the industry for many years can continue to receive financial support even if they no longer act. The reality of an actor’s financial life after retirement is a nuanced subject that depends on multiple factors, such as the actor’s previous contracts, royalties, residuals, personal savings, and future ventures. Pension plans or retirement funds can provide a steady and necessary income stream after retirement.

SAG-AFTRA offers its members the ability to receive pension payments once they reach retirement age, provided they have worked enough qualifying years to qualify. Many actors who worked under union contracts are eligible for pension benefits, which offer retirement income based on their years of work and the contributions they made during their active careers. To receive retirement money from union pension plans, actors must meet eligibility criteria:

• minimum years of covered employment, usually about ten years to become fully vested; and,
• minimum annual earnings thresholds, which limits retirees to a set amount annually under union contracts.

Often actors have to patch together multiple contracts over several years to meet these requirements. Those who join the union later or take extended breaks may struggle to qualify.

Why Actors Are Fighting For Climate Action With Their Pension Plans

We’re at a moment in time in which some pension funds are retreating from sustainable commitments. Yet many are refusing to abandon the planet in pension funds. 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 pledged $400 billion in low-carbon investments by 2030.

The campaign to divest from fossil fuels 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. It is working in conjunction with groups that promote pension divestment, such as Stand.earth and its affiliate network, Climate Safe Pensions.

Fossil Free Funds analyzes the fossil fuel exposure and carbon footprint of thousands of US mutual funds and ETFs. “Big Oil is in 99% of pensions and 401(k)s,” the financial management company states, “and they’ve lost you a lot of money.”

A spokesperson for the SAG-Producers Pension Plan described the impact that climate change is having on pension plans.

“(It) 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.”

The journey of Fossil Free began in 2012. Inspired by the successful divestment campaigns against apartheid in South Africa, Bill McKibben and the 350.org team envisioned a similar approach to tackling the power and influence of the fossil fuel industry.

Today tools for individuals with money in mutual funds — usually where money in 401(k)s, IRAs, or 403(b)s, are invested — are available to see if the businesses they invest in are aligned with their sustainability values. Sphere 500 Fossil-Free Index, for instance, tracks the biggest 500 US companies, minus fossil fuel companies and a few others. Their funds vote shares for climate action and are designed to check the boxes fiduciaries look for in a 401(k) offering.

Letter From SAG-AFTRA

Dear SAG-Producers Pension Trustees,

I am a proud member of SAG-AFTRA. I am grateful for our union and leaders, who saw us through the hard times with courage and wisdom.

I recently learned that our pension fund is invested to the tune of at least $100 million directly in fossil fuel companies. This is bad not just for the planet but for the wallets of every member of our union.

The data is clear that long-term investing in this sector results in worse economic returns. In the past 10 years, the fossil fuel sector has had the lowest returns of any sector in the economy.

So many people in our union depend on these pension funds in their retirement, and fossil fuel investments are hurting their ability to retire well.

For more data, see retirebigoil.org

For these reasons, I fully support removing fossil fuel companies from our SAG-Producers Pension Plan.

‍Signed,