Five years on, Sphere’s new site makes the case against oil in your 401(k)
Buena built Sphere’s first website in 2021. On June 16, 2026 the newest one went live: sharper, calmer and built to move retirement money out of fossil fuels.
If you have a 401(k), you almost certainly own oil and gas companies, and nobody asked you. Sphere’s founder, Alex Wright-Gladstein, wants to change that. This month she brought the idea to Buena, and Doug Burnett, Buena’s founder, signed on as Sphere’s chief creative officer.
One of the biggest pools of money in the country
Retirement savings are one of the largest pools of money in the US, and much of it flows quietly into fossil fuels. Sphere puts it bluntly: 99% of Americans with a 401(k) are invested in them.
Most savers never chose that. The default funds in a plan hold oil, gas and coal, and almost no plan offers a way out. That makes retirement money one of the biggest climate levers most people never touch.
What the brief started from
- 99%of Americans with a 401(k) invested in fossil fuelsSphere’s figure, citing industry data and As You Sow.
- 3boxes a 401(k) fund has to checkDiversified, benchmarked and low cost: what a plan fiduciary needs before adding any fund.
- 2audiences, one brandThe employees who want out, and the fiduciaries who have to say yes.
A climate fund that checks every box
Wanting out isn’t enough. The people who pick retirement plans can be held personally liable for choosing the wrong fund, so a climate fund has to check every box a 401(k) requires: diversified, benchmarked and low cost.
Sphere set out to build that fund: an index of the 500 largest US companies minus fossil fuels and other harmful industries, one that votes its shares for climate action. It also wanted to get people excited about investing in the future again.
Heart followers
The employees and change-makers who push their companies to act.
Rule followers
The HR leaders, finance teams and advisors who have to sign off.
That was the brief in a sentence: build a brand for the first without worrying the second. An underdog that’s confident, an agitator that’s respectful, environmentalists who are good capitalists.
No one should have to choose between profits and purpose.
What came next
The first oursphere.org went live on August 31, 2021, a few weeks before the fund started trading. Then came AtmoSphere, a free tool that shows how much of any company’s 401(k) likely sits in fossil fuels, and a booth for the 401(k) industry’s summit with cake pops and a line for the advisors: “Have your 401(cake) and eat it too.”
The campaigns grew bigger. In 2024 the Virtual March to Retire Big Oil put marchers on Wall Street with a selfie. In 2025, with Stand.earth, Actors Retire Big Oil brought more than 500 actors behind a letter to their own pension fund. And in 2026, a new site for the same mission.
How the partnership grew
February 2021
The brief
Sphere brings Buena a fossil-free 401(k) fund to launch, and Doug Burnett becomes its chief creative officer.
August 31, 2021
The first site
oursphere.org goes live, weeks before the fund starts trading.
February 6, 2024
The march
The Virtual March to Retire Big Oil steps off down Wall Street.
June 2025
The actors
Actors Retire Big Oil asks the SAG-AFTRA pension to divest.
June 16, 2026
The new site
Five years on, a new oursphere.org.
The mission hasn’t changed since this month: a climate-friendly option in every 401(k), and a reason for everyone with one to ask for it.
