Sphere

Sphere (legally Our Sphere, Inc.) is a US climate-focused investment company that works to remove fossil fuel holdings from workplace retirement savings. Its two publicly described product lines are the Sphere 500 Fossil-Free Index, which tracks the 500 largest US companies excluding fossil fuel companies and a small number of other exclusions, and AtmoSphere, a platform for measuring the climate impact of 401(k) investments. AtmoSphere Starter provides company-level insight drawn from public records for individual employees, while AtmoSphere Enterprise calculates the emissions attributable to a plan's 401(k) assets in the context of an organization's total emissions and lets users simulate the effect of changes.

The company positions its funds as designed to satisfy the criteria fiduciaries and benefits teams apply when selecting options for 401(k) and 403(b) lineups, so that a climate-aligned option can be added without switching recordkeepers or plan platforms. Sphere states that it defines fossil fuel companies using the criteria of the nonprofit As You Sow — companies whose core business is extracting, distributing, refining or burning fossil fuels, or supplying equipment for those activities — rather than screening on carbon footprint or net-zero pledges. It distinguishes its approach from ESG funds, noting that many ESG products on retirement platforms still hold fossil fuel companies, and from fossil-free ETFs, which it says are generally not permitted on major 401(k) and 403(b) platforms. The Sphere 500 Climate Fund trades under the ticker SPFFX.

Sphere also publishes advocacy and educational material, including survey data on employee awareness of fossil fuel exposure in retirement plans, analyses of Form 5500 filings estimating fossil fuel investment via large employers' 401(k) plans, commentary on Department of Labor guidance, and research on fossil fuel exposure in European pension and employer retirement plans.