A new lawsuit hopes to win religious accommodations for millions of American workers who wish to request fossil fuel-free retirement plans from their employers.
Andrew Hartley, a Christian and statistical scientist, is suing his employer Thermo Fisher, arguing that Thermo “unlawfully forced him to compromise his religious values in order to receive the full benefits of his employment.”
Brought by the environmental action group ClientEarth, the lawsuit claims that the Supreme Court’s Groff v. DeJoy ruling in 2023 means Thermo Fisher is violating Hartley’s religious liberty by not offering a retirement plan that doesn’t invest in fossil fuels.
Hartley, who lives in East Aurora, N.Y., believes that Christians should care for the Earth and says that profiting from practices that harm the Earth violates his religious beliefs.
"I’ve spent years trying to align my life with my beliefs, but every month I would witness my employer investing the money I’ve earned in the very climate destruction I’ve committed my life to fighting,” said Hartley in a press release.
Hartley attends the United Methodist church in his community, where he actively participates in green initiatives through a church ministry. Jaclyn Lee, a ClientEarth attorney representing Hartley said, “He is very outspoken about issues concerning his faith and the intersection with living sustainably and living out his values, which includes caring for the Earth.”
Through his attorneys, Hartley declined an interview.
Pursued other options
Lee said Hartley contacted ClientEarth to advise on pursuing a fossil-fuel free retirement option from his employer. ClientEarth is an environmental nonprofit organization focusing on legal solutions for protecting the Earth from corporations with environmentally harmful practices. With ClientEarth’s legal support, in October 2024, he wrote to Thermo Fisher’s human resources department requesting one fossil fuel-free investment option in the company’s 401(k) menu. In follow up emails, he included popular options.
“This is an issue that we’ve advised others on,” said Lee. “We similarly helped them come up with language for their employers, and they were able to successfully get their requests … accommodated by their employers.”
Several employers, Lee said, responded by providing a fossil fuel-free option to their employees. In Hartley’s case, he never heard back. He sent multiple follow-up emails throughout 2025 and received no response. Before filing a lawsuit, he filed a religious discrimination charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. His current lawsuit is filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York, Buffalo Division.
First of its kind
ClientEarth believes this is the first case to cite Groff v. DeJoy to argue that employees have the right to use a religious accommodation to seek employer-sponsored retirement fund options that are morally acceptable to their faith traditions.
“We believe that this is a right as granted by the Supreme Court with Groff,” said Lee.
In Groff v. DeJoy, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Gerald Groff, an evangelical postal worker in Pennsylvania who requested not to work on Sundays when his office began delivering Amazon packages. He initially found several other ways to avoid working and observe the Sabbath. But the conflict eventually couldn’t be avoided. After other attempts to resolve the issue, he sued in 2019 and a few years later the case landed at the Supreme Court.
The new ruling raised the bar on previous standards for religious accommodations granted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, saying that employers must accommodate people’s religious beliefs unless they can demonstrate it would lead to “substantial increased costs” to the business.
ClientEarth argues that Thermo Fisher faces no hardship in offering at least one retirement option that is fossil fuel free.
“If we’re successful, then not only does Dr. Hartley get an accommodation, then the fossil fuel-free fund would be available to everyone at Thermo Fisher,” said Lee. “On top of that, if successful, it could also set a precedent that workers across the U.S. have a right to request funds that align with their beliefs.”
The case would apply to the rights of people from many faiths in addition to Christianity, and Title VII’s protections include sincerely held moral or ethical convictions of workers who do not belong to organized religions.
Faith motivations for divestment
According to the search platform Fossil Fuel Funds, approximately $863 billion of American retirement savings is currently invested in fossil fuel companies—which accounts for about one-fifth of U.S. fossil fuel stocks.
The concept of divesting from fossil fuels emerged on college campuses in the early 2010s with leaders like environmentalist Bill McKibben and his organization 350.org. Eventually, the biggest targets became public pension funds—such as those that fund teachers, police, or state employees rather than asking individuals to choose investments for retirement plans.
However, in recent years, individuals concerned about climate change are finding and creating more avenues for diverting their pension savings away from fossil fuels. While there are still barriers for institutions to divest—namely a legal obligation to offer a diverse portfolio—people can hire financial advisors knowledgeable about green investing or check Fossil Free Funds for vetted alternatives.
Faith communities have also contributed leadership and a moral voice to divestment advocacy campaigns. The United Church of Christ became the first U.S. denomination to commit to divestment in 2013. The Church of Sweden became the first major denomination to achieve complete divestment in 2014. The World Council of Churches, representing 580 million Christians worldwide, committed to divest the same year. More recently, 62 faith-based institutions around the world committed to divesting while at COP30 in 2025.
While for-profit corporations hold the most valuable investment portfolios, religious organizations are the leading type of institution making commitments to divest, according to the Global Divestment Database. In their database, there are 661 faith-based organizations with divestment commitments—about 38% of all commitments.
Rabbi Jennie Rosenn, CEO at Dayenu, a Jewish climate advocacy nonprofit, has noticed that popular opinion on fossil fuels divestment has shifted since 2020 when she founded Dayenu to mobilize Jewish institutions to divest from fossil fuels.
“Just in the last five years, I’ve seen a change in people’s willingness to recognize how much the fossil fuel industry is a force for destruction and is being propped up and supported by politicians and other industry,” said Rosenn. “And it’s no longer seen as a radical or marginal idea to speak of them as a force for destruction and a force for evil.”
Potential for impact
With the Hartley v. Thermo Fisher Scientific case, Rosenn said it’s just another opportunity to continue raising the topic in public conversation.
“When you have cases like this that lift up the actions of the fossil fuel industry and … ask ‘Are they impeding individuals’ ability to live out their core values?’ That is a very positive step towards people understanding the insidiousness of the fossil fuel industry,” she said.
Scholar Noam Bergman argues that, although global divestments are not yet large enough to sway fossil fuel companies, the movement’s greatest strength is narrative change. Divestment campaigns motivate not only individuals but also collective action. They give media a new way to talk about climate change and have stigmatized the public image of major oil, gas, and coal companies.
“We also hope that it will also increase the awareness of the fight to secure fossil fuel free retirement,” said Lee. “Many people have strong moral beliefs about what our money should and should not be invested in. We hope that this case will make that right more visible.”
Most participants in company retirement plans—75%—express interest in sustainable investing. But many employees are automatically enrolled in 401K plans or choose default options.
Individuals filed two related cases in 2026. A class-action lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court Western District of Washington claims that 401K fiduciaries ignored climate financial risk to the financial detriment of employees at a real estate company. And a case filed this spring by on behalf of Orthodox Jewish, Muslim, and Catholic youth and others argues that youth cannot practice their religion safely due to heatwaves and other climate effects and asks the D.C. Circuit Court to reverse the effects of a Trump executive order, which resulted in the EPA removing greenhouse gas standards for vehicles.
ClientEarth expects a response from Thermo Fisher in the next two months, but there’s no timetable for resolution.
"I’ve spent years trying to align my life with my beliefs, but every month I would witness my employer investing the money I’ve earned in the very climate destruction I’ve committed my life to fighting.”—Andrew Hartley
Rebecca Randall, an independent reporter and editor, is a Black and Korean U.S. domestic adoptee. She writes on the environment, religion, and adoption. Her first mother is an adoptee from South Korea.
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