Christianity Today August 22, 2026 7 min signal 2026-08-22

A Christian is suing his employer over fossil fuels in his 401(k). Does he have a case?

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Christianity Today

August 21, 2026

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John Still for Thermo Fisher Scientific

Andrew Hartley bikes to work, eats a plant-based diet, and involves himself in multiple organizations that help him do what he thinks the Bible tells him to do: care for the Earth.

His employer, Hartley argues in a new lawsuit filed last week, does not share his mission. Now he is suing the company in a religious discrimination case that could set a new precedent for retirement plans for religious people nationwide.

Hartley, a New York resident and member of a United Methodist church, works as a science director at Thermo Fisher Scientific, a $45 billion biotech company based in Massachusetts. Evaluating his retirement options, Hartley said there were no fossil fuel–free investment plans—which he identifies in the filing as the leading cause of climate change.

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According to the civil court case filed on August 4, Hartley tried contacting the company to request a fossil fuel–free investment option in October 2024 and was told his request did not meet “criteria for a religious accommodation.” He appealed, and after sending the company documents to support his request, he did not hear back for over a year despite sending follow-up requests three times over 2025.

When all else failed, Hartley sued. He’s asking the court to force Thermo Fisher to provide a fossil fuel–free investment option, to engage in good-faith interactions with Hartley in the future, and to compensate him for damages and attorney’s fees, with interest.

Listed among the reasons he believes Christians should be protecting the environment are scriptural imperatives of creation stewardship found in Genesis, God’s ownership of the land in Leviticus 25:23, and Sabbath rests for the land found in 2 Chronicles 36:21.

Jaclyn Lee, an attorney and legal fellow with ClientEarth, is one of the lawyers representing Hartley in the case. She said Hartley’s case, if successful, could set a new legal precedent for workers across the United States, giving them access to retirement plans that align with their beliefs. ClientEarth doesn’t typically take on religious cases; Lee said Hartley’s case is novel for the organization.

A Thermo Fisher spokesperson said the company does not comment on pending litigation and declined to speak.

The primary precedent for Hartley’s case rests on a 2023 Supreme Court decision that sided with a Christian Pennsylvania postal worker who was fired for refusing to take Sunday delivery shifts because of his observance of the Sabbath. In the decision, the court said employers must provide religious accommodations unless it would cause “substantial increased costs” on the employer.

Lee said when the Groff v. DeJoy case was decided, ClientEarth saw this precedent could apply to employees across the nation who have beliefs like Hartley.

“There’s more than 100 million Americans that hold these kinds of beliefs, not just necessarily of the Christian faith but of many faiths,” Lee said. “We recognized that there was a right here to demand a fossil fuel–free retirement as an investment option in alignment with these workers’ beliefs.”

Hartley’s lawsuit argues that providing a fossil fuel–free investing alternative would not increase costs for his employer and that there are “numerous” low-fee and screened investment plans Thermo Fisher could utilize. When asked if Hartley was interested in other climate-friendly aspects of his investments, Lee said the suit was focused on fossil fuels because of the damage they specifically have done.

Fossil fuel–free retirement portfolios aren’t common, but they’re relatively easy to source, according to climate-focused investment organizations. According to a 2020 report, only 3 percent of plans have so-called ESG funds, which allow employees to choose companies that align with their environmental, social, and governance values. Another report said 83 percent of funds are deemed “non-sustainable.”

Lee said there are many portfolios Thermo Fisher could adopt that are already available. If the suit is successful, all Thermo Fisher employees will have access to the fund.

Evaluating the case, Thomas Berg, a religious liberty scholar who teaches at the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis, said the complaint is well structured. It documents the religious basis of Hartley’s claim, the parts that tie into his Methodist faith, and the ways Thermo Fisher did not respond.

“It’s a pretty well-drafted complaint. It has the key elements,” Berg told CT. “The employer at the very least has a duty to try to explain why it can’t be accommodated, and he lays out how the employer hasn’t done that.”

Berg said he has heard of similar cases where Muslim groups pushed for investment funds that structure returns in a way that does not violate Islamic prohibitions on interest or avoid investing in companies that involve non-halal animal processing.

Berg said the case will likely come down to how much of a financial strain it is to source fossil fuel–free retirement funds, but Thermo Fisher would have to prove it is too expensive, and it’s usually better for companies to seek an option than to litigate.

Hartley, according to Berg, is a great client to bring a case like this, as any question of his religious belief in care for the environment can be dispelled with his extensive track record of caring for the environment and integrating that into his faith.

“It’s not a nutty claim at all,” Berg said. “There are objective indicators that this is real. And they’ve done a good job of including them in the complaint.”

Hartley’s case is one of many recent religious liberty suits centering on more progressive issues—in this instance, climate change—rather than traditional conservative grounds for litigation like freedom of speech or abortion. In the last two years, churches have taken action against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and parishioners have been charged with aiding unauthorized immigrants by giving them shelter or food.

“This one is less controversial,” Berg said. “But it is another example of using the conservative-coded concept of religious liberty by a progressive. And religious liberty should not be conservative-coded. It should be understood as a right for all.”

While the Hartley case could set a new precedent in religious liberty law regarding retirement investments, there are similar cases.

In another Climate Earth case out of Washington State filed earlier this year, a former employee of a real estate firm sued the company, claiming it did not protect her retirement plan from financial risks related to climate change, saying investments in fossil fuels are not stable and the company did not heed the risks. The case is still being litigated.

On the flip side, in 2024 a pilot for American Airlines sued the company saying it invested in climate-conscious companies and strategies that underperformed financially. A Texas court ruled in 2025 the airline had breached its duty of loyalty to the employee but did not need to award monetary damages to the pilot, saying there was no proof of direct financial loss as result.

The attorneys for Hartley requested a jury trial, and Thermo Fisher has not announced an attorney in the case yet.

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