Funders come together on climate change

Author: FPF

Date: 04/12/2019

Some of the biggest names in charity funding have made a public commitment to play their part in tackling climate change.

 

The group includes some of the biggest names in UK philanthropy, who have put themselves forward to encourage action on climate change, including a commitment to public reporting on progress. The Funder Commitment on Climate Change was launched at the annual conference of the Association of Charitable Foundations, the trade body for UK charity funders, where climate change was a key theme. Current signatories are calling for other funders to join them in pledging their support.

 

Signatories include:

  • Esmée Fairbairn Foundation
  • Solberga Foundation
  • Gower St
  • Frederick Mulder Foundation
  • Paul Hamlyn Foundation
  • Zennström Philanthropies
  • JA Clark Trust
  • Friends Provident Foundation
  • Local Trust
  • Lankelly Chase Foundation
  • Barrow Cadbury Trust
  • Arcadia
  • Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust
  • Thirty Percy
  • The Blagrave Trust
  • Heathrow Community Trust
  • Power to Change
  • David Brownlow Charitable Foundation
  • Polden-Puckham Charitable Foundation
  • World Habitat
  • Kreitman Foundation
  • Sir Walter St John’s Educational Charity
  • Global Greengrants Fund UK
  • MCS Charitable Foundation
  • The Samworth Foundation
  • John Ellerman Foundation

 

The Funder Commitment recognises that the growing climate emergency is a serious risk to the pursuit of charitable goals and that funders have a responsibility to ensure they are managing and distributing resources in a way that recognises and responds to this threat. The signatories include not just environmental funders, but also those focussed on local communities, the arts, and poverty. All signatories must consider how their investments, operations and existing funding programmemes can contribute to a fair and lasting transition to a post carbon society.

Increasingly, we feel we need to respond more to climate change, especially given our grant-making focus on young people, and the degree to which they see this as the defining challenge of their generation. We are already taking action in some areas, but in others we know that we have a long way to go, so we welcome the framework and stretch target that being a signatory to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change will create. Staff and trustee engagement will help as we shape our response, and we look forward to reporting on our progress next year.

Moira Sinclair, Chief Executive, Paul Hamlyn Foundation

As a place-based funder, we know the potential communities hold to overcome some of the biggest challenges of our time, of which climate change is indisputably one. By signing this commitment we’re recognising the part we must play in being a responsible funder, but also the role that communities can play in creating a more environmentally sustainable future and how we can support them to do so.

Matt Leach, Chief Executive of Local Trust

Like the British public as a whole, people in charity funders want to see bold, positive action on climate change.  This Funder Commitment gives a framework for all funders, whatever their mission, to play their part. We hope that many more funders will sign up in the coming months.

Nick Perks, co-ordinator of the Funder Commitment

For further information or to add your organisation to the Funder Commitment on Climate Change visit fundercommitmentclimatechange.org.uk