Retire Big Oil: 500 actors and 280,000 letters to the SAG pension in five weeks

Five weeks ago, a little over 200 actors asked their union pension to get out of fossil fuels. Today the open letter has passed 500 signers, and supporters have sent more than 280,000 letters to the people who run the SAG-Producers Pension Plan.¹ Retire Big Oil, which we made with Stand.earth and Sphere, has gone from a launch-day story to a standing question the trustees have to answer.

Most of Hollywood signed in the first week

The letter went public on June 24 with more than 200 names, Jane Fonda, Mark Ruffalo and Don Cheadle among them.² It did not stay there long. Within a week the count had more than doubled, to 480 SAG-AFTRA members, and the signers together could reach about 250 million followers.⁴

The second wave brought a new generation of names. In July, America Ferrera, Wanda Sykes, Ayo Edebiri, Stephanie Hsu, Erin Moriarty, Benedict Wong, Mark Rylance, Lorraine Bracco, Billy Eichner and Lana Parrilla all signed.³ Each one arrived with an audience that had never heard of the SAG-Producers Pension Plan, let alone its $100 million in oil and gas.

The fastest growth came from the simplest mechanic. The site separates SAG-AFTRA members from supporters with one click, so every new name is either a vote from inside the union or a voice from the audience that pays to watch it. Both count, and the trustees can see which is which.

A toolkit people actually used

Most campaign toolkits get opened, admired and closed. This one got used. Of the 140 people who opened our ready-to-post kit, 119 shared something from it, an 85% rate against the 25 to 50% that kits like it usually see.

We think it worked because every card was a finished thought, ready to post as is. A face, a plain sentence and the link. Some are stats with a stack of smoke behind them. Some are quote cards in the actor’s own words. One starts, “But before you roast me in the comments, there’s a 99% chance you’re invested in Big Oil too,” which turns a celebrity post into a question for every follower.

The actors kept writing their own lines

The best posts weren’t ours. Chelsea Handler gave the campaign two lines in a single month, the plain one on her quote card and a sharper one for the people who follow her for jokes.

Rosario Dawson, one of the first signers, wrote an op-ed for Stand.earth today under a headline that says the whole thing in nine words: “They’re betting against our future with our own money.” In it she counts the 280,000 letters and points to the bigger prize. A win at the SAG-Producers Pension Plan would set the stage for millions more retirement accounts across the country.¹

One confession became five hundred.

The pension noticed

Coverage started with a Bloomberg exclusive on launch morning and spread through the financial and climate press: Pensions & Investments, ESG Dive, POLITICO’s E&E News, Australia’s Financial Standard, The Cool Down and CleanTechnica.²⁴⁵ Reporters went to the plan for comment. A spokesperson told Bloomberg Green that climate change “can indeed be a factor influencing investment performance,” and that the plan works with advisers to keep its investments sound and responsibly managed.⁴

That is not a yes, but it is an answer, and a public one. Stand.earth’s Todd Paglia said the campaign went public “as a last resort,” because the trustees “haven’t really listened,” and said plainly what comes next: “We don’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”⁴

What happens next

The letter stays open, and the counter keeps running. The campaign sits in Stand.earth’s Climate Safe Pensions Network, and new celebrity posts go out every week. Sphere keeps doing what started all this: showing people what is in their retirement accounts and how to get the fossil fuels out.

The ask hasn’t changed since June. Divest the $100 million, put at least a tenth of it into climate-safe funds within five years, and tell members where their money goes. You don’t need a SAG card to help. Supporters can add a letter at RetireBigOil.org, and anyone with a 401(k) can ask the same question of their own plan.²³