ABSTRACT
Addressing the climate crisis is urgent as we just reached in 2024 1.5 degrees of global warming, which threatens human well-being and planetary health. However, philanthropic funding for environmental issues represents only around 2% of total philanthropic giving. While philanthropy has been engaged in climate and environmental issues for a long time, a new movement emerged in 2019, with the launch of several coalitions of foundations for climate in Europe, in the U.K., France, Spain, Italy, and at the international level from 2021. These coalitions aim to bring together all foundations, including the non-environmental ones, to take a holistic approach to fighting climate change, integrating these issues into their funding and everything they do, from operations to investments or staff training. Based on a research project carried out over four years (2020–2024) in three countries (France, the U.K., and Spain), analyzing how the philanthropic sector is engaging in environmental issues, this chapter presents some preliminary analyzes of the data collected, and some key stakes, such as challenges in framing the topic, transformations that are occurring at the sectoral, organizational, or individual levels, and questions that arise regarding the specific role of philanthropy in the just transition.
