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As soon as you enter a career field as a young adult, retirement planning becomes essential. And as many know, most 401(k)s invest your savings into stocks and mutual funds, some connected with the fossil fuel industry. It’s just the way things have gone for so long.

This brings up some issues, however, because not only are we running out of fossil fuels, they are incredibly harmful to the environment. Their natural expiration date, in addition to their impact on the environment, has led to people going as far as to petition online for fossil-free 401(k) plans. Divesting is now a common topic when it comes to funds that are founded in fossil fuels.

Many young investors are becoming more conscious of these environmental issues and are looking to get away from some of the endeavors they would have invested in 20 years ago. However, a lot of investors have their pockets lined deeper with fossil fuel money than they previously thought, it turns out. So how do we move away from this when it’s so ingrained in our society?

Alternative Energy and Alternative Investments

Ultimately what it comes down to is that we have been told there aren’t any other valid options besides fossil fuel when it comes to efficient energy, but the risks they come with have caused us to search for alternatives. When it comes to your 401(k), there are other investment opportunities that actually push the human race forward, and don’t involve hurting the earth. Luckily, you have the ability to change where the funds in your 401(k) are going.

In short, sustainability is already considered the future of investing, and there are several arenas in which you could invest in it. Some of them are renewable energy projects themselves, some involve e-commerce, but either way, due to the internet, more options exist than ever before, and it’s not just energy plans. Arts and creative industries, for instance, have been reported to add $504 billion to the economy, which are some of many other investment options.

If this is all news to you, it may be good to know more about the issue at hand. If you want to know about alternatives to fossil fuel and how to utilize and embrace alternative energy, it’s never too late to learn, though it can take some time. If you would like a quick rundown, you should watch the following short videos about the matter.

• Will Fossil Fuels Run Out? By BBC’s Earth Lab
• How Burning Fossil Fuels Leads to Climate Change By FuseSchool

Proceeding With Caution

Not only can you control the investments within your 401(k), but you can change the kind of retirement fund you have to be self-run. The process of changing over a 401(k) or other type of retirement fund can be hassling and aggravating, so there’s no shame in approaching such a thing with some reasonable caution. However, it is worth your time, because this dying earth is making fossil fuels a dying industry.

The fact is that a lot of what harms the earth are the things we take for granted. Fossil fuels are so ingrained into our entire culture that we often find ourselves harming the environment without ever thinking about it. So for this reason, it’s important to use the resources available to us for navigating the plain between what we need and what the earth needs.

If you’re not sure about the green capabilities of your current investments, it may be wise to use a tool like HIP Investor, which helps you measure the return potential and environmental impact of an investment. Additionally, fossilfreefunds.org is good for evaluating plans side by side. Using these tools will help you make informed decisions for your personal future as well as that of the generations after us.

The Future of Fossil Fuel Divestment

The good thing about these public realizations is that they’ve made divestment all the more common, and that’s not a trend we see dying any time soon. Due to this shift in focus, we are likely to see more green investment firms popping up. This is already taking off quite rapidly, as Investopedia wrote about:

Some of the options an investor has if they want to build a green portfolio include securities, mutual funds, ETFs and bonds. Green mutual funds include: the TIAA-CREF Social Choice Equity Fund (TICRX); Portfolio 21 Global Equity Fund Class R (PORTX); and the Green Century Balanced Fund (GCBLX). Green bonds can sometimes be offered by governments and generate revenue for funding projects or businesses.

Additionally to this, scientists are expanding on ways to utilize other fuel sources. Energy resources like lithium and uranium are growing in demand, so if that forecast continues we may shift away from fossil fuels relatively soon. However, we haven’t fully explored their capabilities due to the normalcy of fossil fuels, so investment opportunities may be scarcer now than they will be in the relatively soon future once these things have been further experimented with.

While it’s hard to get away from companies that invest in fossil fuels themselves, it’s still an important time to start voting with your dollar. There are fossil-free mutual funds and ETFs that are worth your investment now, because the earth and the people who will be living here after us will suffer for the changes we’re not making. The time to be socially responsible is now, and the more common that mindset becomes the more investment opportunities there will be.

Do you have any specific tips or stories about how you’ve been divesting from fossil fuels? Please share your stories in the comments below!