Financial outcomes from divesting from fossil fuels

By UC Berkeley Economics Professor Clair Brown, Sandy Emerson, Sara Theiss and Glenn Fieldman | May 8, 2023
Photo that shows a closeup of a person's hands stacking coins in increasingly larger stacks, with seedlings on top of each stack.

Screening out fossil fuel stocks has not had a significant impact on returns for global, well-diversified portfolios — in fact over the past 12 years, an index without fossil fuels outperformed its most similar index with fossil fuels, and two separate studies by found that divestment actions taken by funds worldwide have passed the prudence tests required of fiduciaries. An additional academic study spanning decades that included previous oil price spikes found no significant difference in performance between portfolios with and without fossil fuels.

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The Seeds for Our Victory in 2023 — Planted in That Day 2013

By Deborah Silvey | February 10, 2023
Photo of founding members of Fossil Free California, standing behind the large concrete CalPERS building sign, holding up the individual letters that spell out, "DIVEST."

What has kept us so committed to Fossil Free California since these early years? A sense of the urgency of climate change propelled our growth, even while we were  a small, wholly volunteer organization. We also had early success: in 2015 we were part of the coalition that helped pass Senate Bill 185, mandating divestment from thermal coal companies by both CalPERS and CalSTRS.

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