The morning felt chilly and fresh as I boarded the 6:19am train for the long ride from Somerton to Paoli. I was on my way to a bold, four-pronged action planned by EQAT and our partners in the struggle to get Vanguard to steer away from fossil fuel investments. This action was a major escalation at a strategic time in our campaign, and I felt motivated to be a part of it.

After the 2016 election, I started hearing more new EQAT volunteers asking questions like, “What will this action accomplish?” People seemed to have an increased sense of what was at stake and wanted to use their time well. My answer was, “By itself, this action will accomplish nothing, but in our first campaign, 125 actions together moved a bank that netted $4 billion-a-year.”

Vanguard recently withdrew from its biggest climate commitment, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative. EQAT showed up in action at a Vanguard office last week to remind company leadership of the real-life stakes of their decision. The choice to continue to invest in fossil fuels or transition to a clean energy economy shouldn’t be about politics or short-term profits; it’s a choice with long-term consequences for our lives and the people and places we love.