The health care sector is big business and has enormous economic power and moral authority. Collectively, U.S. hospitals have hundreds of billions of dollars invested in the world’s equity markets through their pension funds, endowments, and other vehicles. Unfortunately, that includes investments in fossil fuels.
A first-of-its-kind report found four prominent hospital systems—Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic Health Systems, HCA Healthcare, and Ascension—have over $4 billion of their pension funds invested directly in some of the world’s largest, dirtiest fossil fuel producers, such as Suncor, the largest “tar sands” company in North America, and the disastrous “Willow” decades-long carbon-bomb project in Alaska.
The report focuses on fossil fuel investments in direct contradiction to the health sector leadership’s calls for decarbonizing the health sector. This includes a well-publicized “Call to Action” by the president of the National Academy of Medicine; widespread sustainability commitments made across hospital systems; and a voluminous body of research confirming a range of serious threats to public health from fossil fuel pollution and climate change.
Fossil fuel companies are both the chief drivers of our climate problem and one of the chief obstacles to solutions. By investing billions of dollars in these companies, hospital systems are not living up to their own standards or commitments. They are operating against their stated missions, their written sustainability policies, and the ethical foundation of modern medicine. If they continue to invest in fossil fuel companies, they will do so in contradiction to their stated mission and values.
It’s time for the health care sector to divest from fossil fuels. Climate change is happening now, and delays have consequences that could make all of us sicker for decades to come.
Sign the petition: The health sector institutions must divest from fossil fuels.
