Stand.earth Commends First-Ever Landmark Climate-Safe Retirement Fund Lawsuit

BELLINGHAM, WASH. (Traditional Lummi and Nooksack Lands) – Today, a former Cushman & Wakefield employee filed a potentially precedent-setting class action lawsuit against the company, one of the world’s largest real estate corporations, alleging its retirement plan fiduciaries breached their duties by failing to protect workers’ savings from material climate-related financial risks. 

The Kvek v. Cushman & Wakefield complaint in the U.S. District Court Western District of Washington state, is the first-ever legal challenge to 401(k) fiduciaries for ignoring climate financial risk, alleging that such oversight violates existing fiduciary duties.

In affirmation of this lawsuit, Amy Gray, Stand.earth Climate Finance Associate Director, offered the following statement:

“Retirement savings are workers’ deferred wages. They represent decades of labor and trust in a system that is supposed to protect their future. This case could be a pivotal turning point in how courts, companies and retirement funds view climate risk, and prove that protecting retirement security isn’t political. It’s responsible.”

This case could have wide-ranging implications for the $12 trillion in U.S. workers’ retirement savings held in 401(k)-style plans, including treatment of climate risk analysis as a mandatory component of fiduciary duty. In an era of escalating climate chaos, a victory would signal that asset managers and employers can no longer ignore the physical and economic reality of climate change. Employers have a duty of care to ensure workers’ retirement savings are invested prudently, with appropriate consideration of material climate-related financial risks.

Stand.earth manages the Climate Safe Pensions Network, including the Climate Safe Retirement Fund campaign, that advocates for workers to have increased access to climate-safe options in their retirement funds. With a quarter century of experience running corporate campaigns that have moved entire industries toward more environmentally responsible practices, Stand works to educate and activate public and private sector workers about risks to their pensions and retirement funds and to accelerate investments that advance a clean-energy future.

Media contact

Cari Barcas, Stand.earth Communications Director: cari.barcas@stand.earth