Climate Catalyst: Grantee Spotlight (2025)

Grantee spotlight: Climate Catalyst

The Giving Green Fund plans to award an unrestricted grant to Climate Catalyst, an organization that generates momentum for emissions reduction in sectors and geographies where it is most urgently needed. Its current work programs aim to decarbonize the steel, chemicals, and aviation industries. It has on-the-ground team members in Europe, India, and Indonesia. 

Climate Catalyst’s work falls within our philanthropic strategies of decarbonizing heavy industry and supporting a clean energy transition in low- and middle-income countries. Please see Giving Green’s strategy reports for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties.

Last updated: October 2025

What is Climate Catalyst?

Climate Catalyst was launched in 2021 to spark climate action by executing limited-run projects in crucial sectors and geographies. After identifying priority areas, Climate Catalyst convenes a diverse set of nonprofits and private sector companies to build and implement a shared strategy. It targets multiple points of leverage, combining policy campaigns, technical research, and investor engagement. For example, its first completed campaign brought in 95 business and investor organizations and CEOs, many of whom were new to the topic, to successfully advocate for the inclusion of peatland restoration in the EU’s Nature Restoration Law.

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Its current projects aim to decarbonize steel in India and Indonesia as well as chemicals in India and Europe, and to reduce European aviation emissions. In line with its role as a temporary catalyst, in 2026 it will begin phase down planning for some of its programs, ensuring their impact thresholds are met. It will also begin scoping for it's next two programmes.

What are we funding, and how could it help address climate change?

Heavy industry accounts for around one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. Asia is the world’s largest manufacturing region, while Europe has been a key policy leader through mechanisms like its Emissions Trading Scheme. We think both technological progress and an enabling policy environment are needed to incentivize manufacturers to shift to low-carbon production methods.

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Decarbonizing steel in India and Indonesia: Climate Catalyst’s India program has been active since 2022. Its activities include leading the India Green Steel Network, researching pathways to decarbonize steel, working with government ministries to shape green steel policy, and co-leading a sustainable finance working group. In 2024, Climate Catalyst began a similar program in Indonesia. It launched a network of nonprofits, financial institutions, and steelmakers to accelerate policy and shift investment toward industrial decarbonization. It has begun engaging with the Indonesian Ministry of Steel and is conducting research to make the business case for green steel. 

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Decarbonizing chemicals in Europe and India: In 2025, Climate Catalyst conducted a detailed landscape analysis of decarbonization efforts in the chemicals sector. It identified influencing upcoming EU chemicals policies and transitioning to green ammonia in India as key priorities. It plans to convene networks in Europe and India to identify strategic priorities and advocate for policies to support them.

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Why do we think Climate Catalyst will use this funding well?

We are excited about Climate Catalyst’s operational model to catalyze lasting decarbonization efforts in neglected sectors and geographies, which are especially in need of funding. We have also been impressed by Climate Catalyst’s strategic approach to selecting projects and its ability to build relationships among nonprofits, the private sector, and governments. 

We are confident in Climate Catalyst’s effectiveness because it has established a strong track record in the short time it has been active. It created and established a unifying strategy for the India Green Steel Network and used it to influence India’s upcoming green steel public procurement policy and scrap strategy. In Indonesia, it's building a network of organizations actively working on green steel, growing the number of organizations from three to nearly 20, and has identified key policy levers from perspective of the industry, such as green public procurement, circularity incentives, and globally aligned standards. We have been impressed by the depth of analysis and engagement Climate Catalyst demonstrated during the scoping phase of its chemicals program, and believe Climate Catalyst will be able to replicate its previous successes in this new area.

Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our top nonprofits. For several reasons, we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund, as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

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