FDNH is a member of the Climate Safe Pensions Network – a collaborative umbrella of climate finance organizations advocating for fossil fuel divestment in local government, the banking and finance sectors, philanthropy, religious institutions, and academia. We model our campaign on previous divestment campaigns focused on apartheid South Africa and Tobacco.
The campaign is directed by surgical technologist Don Lieber, with organizational support from Stand.earth. The campaign is followed by hundreds of medical professionals, health organizations, and climate justice advocates around the world. Our work has been endorsed by the Physicians for Social Responsibility, The Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Health Professionals for a Healthy Climate, the Rainforest Action Network, Divest TIAA, Third Act and many more. Our groundbreaking report “The Biggest Malpractice” – the first-ever report detailing the specific fossil fuel investments made by some of the most well-known private hospital systems in the US – was cited in Time Magazine and Campaign Director Lieber was featured in an OpEd in the Los Angeles Times.
Ours is the voice of thousands of frontline health professionals – nurses, physician-assistants, ER docs, respiratory therapists – witnessing firsthand the increasing threats to public health, our facilities, our patients, and our communities, from the accelerating impacts of climate change and fossil fuels.
Our campaign is based on the ‘prime directive’ of Western medicine, the golden rule that is expected from healthcare professionals: “primum non nocere” (First, Do No Harm). In the era of climate change – which at core is a public health crisis – this bedrock principle must be applied to the health sector’s own fossil fuel investments, as a global health and justice imperative.
Key Dates
March 2022
First Do No Harm joins the Climate Safe Pensions Network (CSPN), under the auspices of Stand.earth – the first campaign in the large CSPN network with an exclusive focus on the health sector.
September 2022
FDNH letter to the National Academy of Medicine, demanding it include fossil fuel divestment within it’s existing framework “Climate Action Collaborative” which partners with hospital systems and other health stakeholders across the US to reduce the large climate impact of the health sector.
April 2023
FDNH releases TheBiggest Malpractice: How Hospitals Betray the Public Trust with Billions in Fossil Fuel Pension Investments which details – for the first time – specific fossil fuel investments made by private health systems in the U.S. The four case-study hospital systems studied revealed over $4 billion in fossil fuel investments.
October 2023
The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) announces it will divest from fossil fuels,
2022-24
Campaign published in / covered in TIME magazine, LATimes, HealthEuropa, Environmental Health News and others.
April 2025
FDNH launches new website and campaign initiatives endorsed by Physicians for Social Responsibility and other health professional organizations in the U.S. and Canada.