Our Stories, Our Capital: How Worker Stories Can Shape Climate-Resilient Pensions
Editor’s Note: This blog reflects insights from a conversation between CFA advisors Marcela Pinilla, Director of Sustainable Investing at Zevin Asset Management, and Beverly Ortiz, Consultant and Organizer with the Fred Ross Project. Their perspectives on worker voice, climate risk, and pension governance informed the ideas explored here.
Storytelling is one of the most powerful tools we have for organizing because our stories remind everyone what’s at stake, who holds power, and how we can use it to build a sustainable future.
Why stories matter in climate and pension organizing
When we organize around something as complex as public pension funds and climate risk, stories translate jargon into real life. Climate Finance Action (CFA) exists in part to demystify finance and create ways for workers, trustees, and union members to see themselves as active shapers—not passive bystanders—in these systems. Storytelling is one of the most direct ways to do that, because a good narrative connects everyday experiences at work, in our communities, and in our families to decisions being made in boardrooms and state capitals.
And here’s the thing: climate risk is no longer an abstract future problem. It shows up in the safety of our workplaces, in storms and fires that damage our communities, and in the long-term performance of our retirement funds. A worker in Arizona collapsed from heat exhaustion in minutes on a hot tarmac. New York City subways flooded overnight. The Palisades Fire leveled entire neighborhoods.
Stories like these make the stakes real. They also raise important questions: who is accountable, and where is our money? They push people to ask: What are our pension dollars funding? How are those dollars being stewarded? And does that align with the future we’re fighting for?
From “their money” to “our capital”
One of the most important narrative shifts CFA supports is moving from “the pension fund” as a distant institution to “our capital” as workers and beneficiaries. With more than $6 trillion in workers' retirement investments in public systems, union members and trustees have enormous potential to drive climate-resilient, responsible investments. When the story changes from “they invest” to “we own,” we begin to see decisions about climate risk and climate solutions as their business.
CFA’s workshops and tools are designed to reinforce this ownership narrative. Members who participate often realize they are not just saving for retirement; they are co-owners of long-term capital that can either fuel the climate crisis or help build a just, inclusive, climate-resilient economy. One union leader put it clearly: workshops reminded members they’re owners whose voices can push funds to confront climate risk and invest in solutions that protect workers’ futures.
Best practices for building our stories
Narrative strategy should be grounded in a few simple practices that any community member, worker, union member, or leader can use.
Share about yourself and your experience.
Every powerful campaign story starts with a person. When you talk about climate risk and public capital, begin with who you are: your role, your years of service, your family, and why a secure, dignified retirement matters to you. This personal foundation is part of connecting abstract finance questions to the lived realities of teachers, firefighters, health care workers, and other public employees.
Listen and learn others’ stories.
Narrative strategy is not a solo performance; it’s a collective practice. Listening to co‑workers, trustees, retirees, and community members reveals the shared patterns: flooded neighborhoods, smoke days at work, heat waves on the job, or anxiety about whether pension funds are exposed to the possibility of stranded utility companies or fossil fuel assets. It’s about gathering and amplifying workers’ own perspectives on climate, pensions, and risk.
Make the story about “us, our issues, our fight.”
A strong narrative doesn’t revolve around a single hero; it centers on a “we.” In this context, “we” are the workers and beneficiaries whose contributions partially created these funds, the trustees charged with fiduciary duty, and the communities whose futures depend on how this capital is stewarded. The key is to connect fiduciary duty directly to climate reality: protecting long‑term retirement security and building an inclusive, low‑carbon economy are not competing goals, so they belong in the same story.
Tie stories to concrete levers for action to build trust and move people.
An effective narrative strategy always points toward action. Give people clear next steps once they see themselves in the story. When a worker shares a story about wildfire smoke affecting their health at work, the narrative can naturally lead to questions for the pension board about deforestation and exposure to pollutants, or proposals to invest in community resilience projects and union jobs in clean energy.
Let the campaign and the stories… move
Life flows and moves, and so does every campaign. New issues arise, new financial decisions come up, and how climate change impacts our members face are constantly evolving.
Narrative strategy has to be just as alive: we keep listening, updating our stories, and connecting fresh experiences to the core message that public capital should serve workers, communities, and the planet over the long term. As trustees consider new investment policies, climate risk frameworks, or just transition strategies anchored in union jobs and community resilience, our stories can expand to include new victories, lessons, and questions.
How workers and unions can shape public capital through narrative
Storytelling becomes an organizing power when it changes who is in the conversation and what is considered “normal” investment practice. It’s pairing stories with clear information about how pension systems work, who makes decisions, and what tools workers and trustees have to influence those decisions. When union members can explain—in their own words—why unmanaged climate risk threatens both their communities and their retirement security, they make a compelling case that climate‑competent governance is a core part of fiduciary duty.
Here are a few ways narrative strategy can directly shape public capital:
Center retirement security and climate stability as one story, not two separate issues, so climate-aligned investment and stewardship is framed as protecting pensions, not as an add‑on.
Highlight worker and community experiences of climate impacts to show why long‑term public funds must account for climate risk in asset performance and local economies.
Lift up examples of responsible investing, community‑based climate solutions, and just transition projects that create good union jobs, emphasizing that alternatives already exist.
Use personal narratives in testimonies to pension boards, letters to trustees, and member education, backed by CFA’s research, checklists, and guidance.
In every case, the story we are telling is simple and powerful: these are our funds, our futures, and our communities, and we have both the right and the responsibility to work alongside trustees and governance officers so that public capital is stewarded and invested in ways that build a thriving, inclusive, climate‑resilient economy for all.
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