I want to make my retirement account more environmentally friendly. Thing is, this goal is in the same camp for me as learning to sew my own clothes, play the cello or speak French conversationally — I love it in concept, but the reality of actually accomplishing those goals is beyond daunting.
The latest season of Marketplace’s “How We Survive” podcast examines the rise and fall of ESG investing, or investments that consider environmental, social and governance factors. The last episode focuses on reducing your carbon footprint by examining the investments in your retirement portfolio.
“It turns out that moving your investments to a climate-friendly investment option is the single most impactful thing that the average American can do for climate change,” Alex Wright-Gladstein told Marketplace’s Amy Scott. Wright-Gladstein is the founder and CEO of Sphere, a company focused on climate-friendly investing. That line got me thinking about my own retirement account. I am by no means rich — no one goes into public radio to become a millionaire — but my retirement savings are the single largest sum of money I’ve invested at the ripe old age of 26. So I want to feel good (and secure) about it.
So I went out on a personal quest: To more closely examine what investments my 403(b) — the nonprofit version of a 401(k) — held, interrogate the environmental impact of those investments and see how easy it would be to change them. |