Go green without losing sleep. Hire 401k experts to lighten your load.

You didn’t get into HR to master 401(k)s. Our expert team makes setup or switching effortless—with ERISA-compliant, sustainable plans and easy compliance tools that keep everyone sleeping soundly.

To get customized pricing tell us about you:

Investment Choices

Your diversified employees deserve diversified investment options. That's our specialty.

We believe different employees have different investment philosophies with different risk/reward appetites. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, we want to give each member of your team the ability to choose which philosophy is best for them. Every plan we serve has three target date funds series as well as underlying funds for the following investment philosophies:

Passive

Passive funds are built to simply track overall stock and bond markets. They're the most common investment philosophy in 401(k) plans. We include a full series of low-fee index funds as well as a complete passive target date fund in all of our plan lineups. Our goal is to expand investment options, not take them away.

ESG

ESG funds emerged as a way to enable investors to diversify away some "off-balance sheet" types of risks specifically related to Environmental, Social, and Governance of a given company. While the rhetoric of ESG has shifted away from this initial goal of diversification, we believe taking these risks into account is a distinct investment philosophy with a clear rationale for why it could deliver longterm alpha.

Climate

Climate funds are for investors who believe the overall stock and bond markets are not properly accounting for the realities of climate change and the energy transition. We include our ClimateSmart target date funds in most of our plans as well as climate-focused funds for some asset classes where funds exist that meet our criteria.

How we make your job easier

Jargon-Free financial ed

Your HR team aren't 401(k) experts. That's our job. From our live onboarding session, to our quarterly finance 101 webinars and market review newsletters, our goal is for your team to feel in control of their savings.

Dedicated HR support

Get the 401(k) partner you've been looking for. From advocating on your behalf, to getting on the phone, to creative problem solving, you will have a guide, translating 401k-jargon into plain english for you.

Fiduciary 2.0 software

It can feel daunting to run a 401k program. But the key is documentation. We make it easy by assigning one simple compliance task per quarter and keeping the results audit-ready in your compliance vault.

Recordkeeper Options

We can work with any open architecture recordkeeper. An open architecture recordkeeper allows an external investment advisor like us to build customized fund lineups. We'll work with any recordkeeper that allows our fund lineup on their platform.

FAQ

How much does it cost to work with Carbon Collective as a 401k advisor?

We're pretty competitive. If you have an advisor already, our fee will be 10% less than what you're paying them. If you don't have one, come chat with us for a quote.

What's the difference between a recordkeeper and an advisor?

A recordkeeper is the software portal for their 401k. Your team can change contribution rates and their portfolios. HR gets access to necessary reports and a good one will help file your form 5500 each year. We can work with any open-architecture recordkeeper that allows us to build our customized fund lineups (most do).

An advisor builds and maintains your fund lineup. But a good advisor is like a Yoda for your 401k. They will troubleshoot issues with you, educate your team, and proactively communicate in times of market instability. (Hint: we're a good advisor).

How many clients do we work with in our 401k program?

As of 2025, we proudly serve over 140 businesses and nonprofits as their advisor.

Why do we include our Fiduciary 2.0 Software for free?

Because when you hire us, we become a fiduciary too in your plan. If the plan is a mess, and documentation is poor, that's not just bad for you. It's bad for us too.

So we built our Fiduciary 2.0 software to make it easy, and honestly pretty fast, to built and maintain immutable records that we not only are doing regular investment reviews, but that you are regularly reviewing the plan's health and its service providers. In the event of an audit, no scrambling to collect docs. Export all records with the click of a button.

What is our investment review process?

Many advisors force their clients to sit through long investment review meetings as often as quarterly.

We, and our ERISA attorneys, think such reviews are not only boring, but a waste of time. As the plan sponsor, it's your job to hire an advisor like us, and then to document that you are undergoing sufficient oversight of that advisor. You don't need to spend 90 minutes every 90 days with your advisor to achieve that.

Our difference

01. We're clear eyed.

We think financial security and climate health are directly linked.

02. We're independent.

We're not owned by a big bank or Wall Street firm.

03. We're real people.

You'll feel it the moment you meet us.