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The Giving Green Fund (GGF) supports Giving Green’s top giving opportunities in climate. By donating to the Giving Green Fund, donors enable responsive and impact-first grantmaking to our recommended nonprofits. Generally, we work with our operational partner Giving What We Can to recommend quarterly grants from the Giving Green Fund to our top nonprofits. In Q1 of 2024, we are recommending the following allocations: Clean Air Task Force: $312,500 Good Energy Collective: $200,000 Industrious Labs: $200,000 Opportunity Green: $200,000 Project Innerspace: $200,000 In Q2 of 2024, we plan to recommend the following allocation: Good Food Institute: $312,500 Together, these recommended grants represent all the funds we have raised in Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, in addition to funds raised in Q3 2023 which were left in reserve to avoid the transaction costs of small disbursements. In general, we do not rank our top nonprofits, and our default choice for GGF is to divide the funds equally among all top nonprofits. (For more on this reasoning, see our blog post explaining how GGF allocates.) However, if we learn more information about the impact of additional donations to each organization, we shift our recommended allocations away from this default and towards what we think will be the most impactful use of donors’ funds. Therefore, our team reached out to each of our top nonprofits to learn more about (a) each organization’s progress towards its 2024 fundraising goals and (b) near-term projects in need of support. To come to a decision, several members of our team proposed example allocations, and we discussed our reasoning and points of disagreement. Ultimately, we agreed on a final allocation that primarily reflects three concerns: The larger organizations (CATF and GFI) are more able to absorb more funding at once. Each organization still has a compelling use for additional funding. We did not want to appear to rank organizations with false precision, and there were not large differences between our suggested grants to each nonprofit, so we instead split the nonprofits into two groups and divided equally within those two groups. Note that this is not an endorsement of donating to any one charity over any other charity among these six. For most donors, we still think any of our top nonprofits are excellent places to give to fight the climate crisis. For donors giving larger amounts, we encourage you to reach out to us to discuss information about funding need! While we strive to be as transparent as possible with the public, we are able to share some additional information about funding gaps and high-priority projects in a 1-1 context. We are grateful to the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation for entrusting us to steward a $1M gift to the Giving Green Fund. We expect that the funds from that gift will be allocated as part of this series of disbursements.

The gift will be regranted to a portfolio of nonprofits to power high-impact climate initiatives Giving Green’s regranting fund has received a transformative $1 million donation to be disbursed to high-impact climate initiatives. The Giving Green Fund is a regranting initiative that supports high-impact climate projects, as identified by evaluator Giving Green. Our research team advises grants based on the latest funding needs and trends in climate. Launched at the end of 2022, the Giving Green Fund had received $700,000 as of the end of 2023. The $1 million donation in 2024, from the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation, brings the total amount donated to the Giving Green Fund to $1.7 million as of Q1 2024. “The idea of giving to the Giving Green Fund that is operated by specialists in climate feels like we’re expanding our philanthropic staff,” said Brittany Erikson, executive director of the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation. “Suddenly we have the Giving Green team and all the expertise they bring. It’s like an extension of RTNF’s own team members.” While the Giving Green Fund has received institutional grants before, we are particularly excited about this gift for a few reasons: With a larger fund, we can play an outsized role in catalyzing new ideas and organizations. We have assessed such opportunities in the past and look forward to evaluating more. Partnership with a well-respected foundation can send a signal to other institutional philanthropists: that the Giving Green Fund can be an impactful place to give, and that funds in general can be a powerful way to leverage expertise beyond your own and enable strategic grantmaking. The need for funding in high-impact climate work is much greater than $1 million. We believe this gift enables us to leverage further funds raised for even greater impact. The Giving Green Fund disburses quarterly. The latest $1 million grant, along with the money raised in the first quarter of 2024, will be disbursed in the second quarter. All of the fund’s disbursements are published openly on Giving Green’s website. Giving Green’s current top climate nonprofit recommendations work on the following high-leverage sectors: heavy industry decarbonization, next-generation geothermal energy, alternative protein innovation, shipping and aviation decarbonization, and advanced nuclear. Within these five sectors, Giving Green recommends six top climate nonprofits: Project InnerSpace Fast-tracking next-generation technologies to make geothermal energy available worldwide Opportunity Green Reducing emissions from aviation and maritime shipping through a multi-pronged strategy Industrious Labs Running comprehensive campaigns to decarbonize specific heavy industries Good Food Institute Making alternative proteins as affordable and tasty as conventional products Good Energy Supporting advanced nuclear as part of an environmentally just climate agenda Clean Air Task Force Speeding up the growth of low-carbon technologies to reduce emissions broadly and quicker (Listed in reverse alphabetical order) We want to thank the Ray and Tye Noorda Foundation and all Giving Green Fund supporters for trusting the Giving Green team to find high-leverage giving opportunities, as well as for supporting the Giving Green Fund, which in turn supports scalable, feasible climate initiatives neglected by traditional funding.

As our team looks back on our fourth giving season, here's a roundup of some of our recent conversations about effective climate giving: We spoke to Hothouse about the shifts in the climate landscape and why we have turned towards international, technological solutions to climate change: Short of asking developing countries to dramatically restrict their consumption of goods that much of the developed world has enjoyed abundantly for decades, Stein points out there aren’t very many high-impact options to offer developing countries equitable access to resources while still adhering to the road to sub-2C. “I think everything has to be done [through] the lens of massive energy demand increases in poor countries,” says Stein. “What’s scary about shipping and aviation—it’s about 6 percent [of greenhouse gas emissions] right now. Projections in the future you see almost all other industries going down… All that’s supposed to happen in aviation is demand goes up and we have no way to make it cleaner… Maybe [you could] argue we shouldn’t be flying, [but that’s] tough from equity perspectives.” This is where Stein theorizes technological innovations will need to come in. Our research was used by Doneer Effectief and the University of Amsterdam to develop their "champions league of charities": The University of Amsterdam and the Doneer Effective Foundation joined forces to make a selection of the most effective charities worldwide. 'This way we can help Dutch donors donate as impactfully as possible,' Smeets explains. “A thoughtful donation can have a major positive impact,” Schaper adds. 'The social challenges we now face, such as climate change and inequality, do not respect national borders. With this international selection we offer something unique for Dutch donors who want to help solve major world problems.' We spoke to Cardrate about the research process behind our top recommendations: “We look for initiatives that impact the leverage points within the system,” Stein said. “The organizations that make our final list can make a big difference with some extra funding.” And we celebrated the holiday spirit, with Thanksgiving gratitudes, an evidence-backed Giving Tuesday, and ways to not be an environmental Grinch!

In 2019, there was a concept called “SureCool”. “We propose a new organization, SureCool, to help funders find the most effective use of their dollars in fighting climate change.” “Sounds like an air conditioning brand” was the early feedback. We went back to the drawing board on the name, but the concept had staying power. Four years later, Giving Green has gone from a side-of-the-desk project to a team of seven, moving $16.5 million over the years to a portfolio of highly effective climate initiatives. In 2023, we continue to improve our research and grow our impact. Recognizing that multiple levers are needed for systems change, we increased the size and the diversity of our list of top climate nonprofit recommendations. Knowing that we need to meet people where they are, we diversified communications channels, reaching a wide range of audiences. Acknowledging the different manifestations of climate change across different geographies, we deepened partnerships in key regions in Europe and Asia-Pacific. Yet it still feels like the start of many new chapters. As the planet continues to heat up, the need grows for evidence-based climate action that truly moves the needle. In 2024, we are bolstering research and communications functions to further increase the size and the effectiveness of climate giving. We thank our supporters for joining us on this journey. Table of contents Who we are What we do Our organization Theory of change Our impact 2023 highlights Plans for 2024 Appendix: How we measure impact Who we are Giving Green guides individuals, foundations, and businesses to make more effective climate-giving decisions. We find evidence-based, cost-effective, and high-leverage organizations that maximize the climate impact of your money. What we do We offer two flagship products: For individuals, foundations, and other donors: top climate nonprofit recommendations and audience-specific recommendations (e.g., for Australian donors). For businesses: a comprehensive guide on effective corporate climate actions, featuring practical strategies and recommendations. We are also actively expanding the following services: Bespoke consulting: we deliver customized research and recommendations to individuals and organizations upon request. For investors: we have conducted initial research on climate-friendly investments for retail investors and we hope to expand this workstream in 2024. Our organization Our organization consists of two functions: Research: conduct climate-giving research and produce recommendations. Communications: disseminate findings to diverse audiences. Our products and functions are guided by our organizational values of truth-seeking, humility, transparency, and collaboration. Theory of change Our impact Our primary metric for measuring impact is “money moved”, i.e., donations and purchases directed to our recommendations due to our influence. We estimate the additional dollars we drove to our recommended organizations each year, accounting for scenarios where we only receive partial credit for the donation. We also calculate our impact multiplier, i.e., money moved to high-impact climate initiatives relative to the cost of our operations. However, these are imperfect metrics because we do not find out about all the donations we influence. Therefore, we also gauge our influence through intermediate indicators such as press mentions and corporate engagement. Money moved (in USD) In 2023, Giving Green influenced an estimated $11.2 million towards our recommendations, up from $3 million in 2022 and $2 million in 2021. One element that drove our impact higher in 2023 was a series of large donations made by an anonymous donor to all of our top recommendations. Since Giving Green’s inception in 2020, we estimate that we have influenced $16.5 million. See the appendix for details on how we calculated these estimates. Impact multiplier In 2023, we increased our “impact multiplier”—dollars we move to our recommendations, divided by our operating cost—to 19x. This means that every dollar donated to Giving Green in 2023 yielded about $19 in funding for our recommended high-impact climate organizations. Table 1: Calculating impact multipliers from operations cost and money moved. The vast majority of our expenses go to staff salaries and benefits. We have an overhead rate of 11% of expenditures that covers finance, legal, and administrative functions (provided by IDinsight, the nonprofit incubating Giving Green). Our spending decreased slightly in 2023 due to a staff departure. In 2024, depending on funding, we hope to grow our headcount by one to two additional people. We note that the projected expenditure for 2024 assumes that we make only one additional hire. We can absorb more funding for our operations to further increase our research and communications capacity. Intermediate indicators Press mentions We believe by making scientific, transparent, and actionable giving opportunities more accessible to the mainstream audience via media coverage, we are introducing more rigor to mainstream conversations around climate giving. In 2023, we were mentioned in the press 41 times, up from 28 in 2022. Notable mentions include op-eds published in philanthropy publications and our recommendations highlighted in popular outlets like Vox. Corporate engagement In 2023, we formally launched our business climate action guide, after initial previews in 2022. We hosted a webinar in April with over 200 registrants. Since the launch, we have engaged in a series of one-to-one consultations with seven companies, ranging from small startups to medium-sized finance companies to tech juggernauts. Our corporate engagement aims to advance two goals: Strategy change: encouraging concrete improvements to a company’s sustainability strategy to identify bigger levers. Field building: bolstering the growing “beyond value chain mitigation” movement to encourage the private sector to go beyond their carbon footprint and advocate for systems change. It is worth noting that it takes longer to shape corporate sustainability strategies than to update donation preferences, and money moved to our business recommendations does not fully capture the qualitative changes in strategic direction. We will continue to track and measure our impact from our business guidance. 2023 highlights Recommended two new top nonprofits In 2023, we identified two new impact strategies (next-generation geothermal energy and shipping & aviation decarbonization). Within these strategies, we made two new top recommendations (Project InnerSpace and Opportunity Green). In total, we recommended five climate-giving strategies and six top nonprofits, growing the diversity of our recommendations to reflect the multiple levers needed to change the systems of unsustainable emissions. Our 2023 top climate nonprofit recommendations are: 13261.8K $782,000 raised through the Giving Green Fund In late 2022, we launched the Giving Green Fund, a regranting fund featuring our top recommendations. The fund is our highest-impact giving option, and we were happy to receive $782,000 in donations to the fund in 2023. The median donation to the fund is $50, and we are pleased that the fund could help donors of all sizes give effectively. We make disbursement recommendations quarterly and document the decisions publicly. As the Giving Green Fund grows, we plan to experiment with more sophisticated funding strategies, such as funding catalytic, new initiatives that are not yet public. Improved research transparency and quality Major updates to research quality include: Made early-stage prioritization more transparent by creating a public-facing research dashboard, showcasing ~40 impact strategies that we have assessed or plan to assess Formalized the external feedback process and recruited external reviewers with domain expertise. Published detailed documentation of our research process. Nurtured key partnerships To amplify our impact beyond our own networks, we invested significant time in 2023 to build and deepen partnerships. Key groups include: Geographical: effective giving organizations based in specific countries or regions, such as Doneer Effectief in the Netherlands and Effectiv Spenden in Germany, Sectoral: networks centered around philanthropy and/or climate, such as the WINGS philanthropy network, Generation Pledge, the Asian Philanthropy Circle’s Climate Collective, and the Effective Altruism climate working group. Financial: financial communities that seek to use different forms of financial capital to generate positive social impact, such as the impact investment community. Reached new audiences through events In 2023 we experimented with events to reach specific demographics. We organized one in-person event with a group of high-net-wealth individuals. We also hosted two webinars, serving the business and philanthropy audiences, respectively. More than 600 people signed up to the two webinars, and 240 people attended live. With a bigger team, we also ramped up our attendance and speaking engagements at major sectoral events to promote effective climate giving, such as a panel talk at the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s annual gathering. Plans for 2024 Maximize the money moved to our recommendations Building on the momentum in 2023, we aim to raise even more money for our recommended organizations and drive our impact multiplier even higher. Expand research priorities to cover new intersections and regions We recognize the many facets of climate change across geographies and social issues. We plan to devote more time to finding high-impact giving opportunities based outside of the US and Europe, specifically in low- and middle-income countries. Continue to promote effective business climate action As more studies cast doubts on carbon offsets' efficacy, the need for more evidence-based corporate climate action grows. We plan to continue thoughtful engagement in the private sector as advocacy for the “beyond value chain mitigation” movement grows. Update research on sustainable investment We continue to observe a high demand for evidence-based guidance on climate-friendly investment. We will actively seek to secure funding to update our 2021 research on ESG funds and climate impact investment, Undertake new consulting projects We know that our flagship products—top climate nonprofit recommendations and corporate climate action guide—do not meet the needs of all donors and their unique constraints and opportunities. In 2024, we hope to take on a small number of research consulting projects, allowing us to widen our impact and diversify our revenue streams. We have taken on consulting projects of various sizes, from evaluating a specific organization to exploring giving opportunities in a particular sector to understanding the comparative advantage of a country. If you would like to explore consulting projects with us, please reach out. Expand communications efforts We plan to hire an additional communications and development officer in early 2024. We expect the new hire to boost existing outreach efforts and explore new growth channels, helping us convert existing audiences and reach new segments. We find high-impact climate initiatives. You can turbocharge them. Giving Green Incubated by IDinsight https://www.givinggreen.earth/ givinggreen@idinsight.org Appendix: How we measure impact Data sources To calculate money moved, we first ask each recommended organization for its best estimate of money directed from sources we have influenced. Example sources include: Donors who clicked on a recommended organization’s site from Giving Green’s site Donors who proactively mentioned hearing about a recommended organization from a media piece informed by Giving Green Businesses that purchased carbon credits based on conversations with our team Foundations that made a gift after considering several sources of evidence, including Giving Green’s research It is worth noting that different organizations have different tracking methods and capabilities. We cross-reference data from recommended organizations with other sources, such as our internal tracking, conversations with large donors or business purchasers, and regranters facilitating donations to our recommendations. Impact attribution Once we have this data, we multiply each dollar amount by a percentage that represents our estimate of the share of influence we had over that amount. This subjective assessment encompasses questions like: Were these donors influenced by multiple sources, and if so, does Giving Green only deserve “partial credit”? How certain are we that these donors were influenced by Giving Green versus another source? For example, if a recommended organization raised $50,000 from an effective altruist audience, but it was already well-known in effective altruist spaces, we might assign ourselves just 10%, or $5,000, of impact. However, if no other mention of that nonprofit appears in effective altruist spaces, we might assign ourselves 100% of the impact. We assign three such percentages: A “certain” percentage: what share of this money are we completely certain is attributable to Giving Green? A “best guess” percentage: taking into account the above factors An “optimistic” percentage: taking an optimistic view of the above factors By adding all “best guess” amounts together, we reach a total “best guess” for money moved. Similarly, adding the “certain” amounts together and “optimistic” amounts together gives us an estimated range of money moved. Table 2: Range of estimates of our money moved. In 2023, our “best guess” number is $11.2M, which is much higher than our “certain” number, $2.0M. This is primarily because we learned of a series of large donations to our recommendations. We have a lot of evidence that suggests that these donations are due to the influence of Giving Green, but we are not completely certain, so for transparency we have excluded these from our “certain” estimate. Uncertainties We are uncertain whether the “money moved” metric adequately accounts for the counterfactual impact of the money. If, for instance, a donor would have otherwise given to a nonprofit that is 50% as effective, should we credit ourselves with 50% of this money moved? Our current assumption, based on limited customer research, is that most donors would have given to significantly less effective nonprofits or not at all, but we recognize that this is a major uncertainty. We are also uncertain whether our data is capturing all of our donor audience, and therefore our impact numbers may be a significant underestimate. For instance, it is relatively easy for us to assess our impact on mass-market online donors whose clicks can be tracked. However, it is difficult to assess our influence with larger donors or business purchasers, who may give via check or wire transfer and not proactively mention Giving Green as an inspiration. For example, in several cases, we have heard that we influenced large gifts many months after the fact.

The Giving Green Fund (GGF) makes donations to Giving Green’s top recommended organizations. By donating to the Giving Green Fund, donors enable responsive and impact-first grantmaking to our recommended nonprofits. In Q3 2023, for funds raised in Q2 (roughly $270,000), in addition to our $50,000 reserve, we recommended an allocation as follows: $100,000 to Industrious Labs, $70,000 to Good Food Institute, and $50,000 each to Good Energy Collective, Evergreen Collaborative, and Clean Air Task Force. Note that this is not an endorsement of donating to any one nonprofit above others, and is based on the knowledge we had at this particular moment in time! We share this reasoning primarily for transparency to existing supporters, and not to encourage individuals to donate to any one organization over another. In Q4 2023, for funds raised in Q3 (roughly $50,000), we recommended holding these funds in reserve so that they can be disbursed alongside money raised in Q4.  This is to decrease the transaction costs of having many small disbursements. For more on the Giving Green Fund, see Giving Green Fund: Why donate to an expertly curated climate fund? Our team’s reasoning for our recommended allocation In Q3, we had significantly more information about our top nonprofits’ funding need than in previous quarters. Each nonprofit had experienced varying success in fundraising, and as part of our annual reevaluations, we learned more information about their plans and progress. So our team sat down to discuss in depth where we thought the highest-impact use of funds could be. We considered questions like: How much has Giving Green helped this nonprofit so far? We considered directing more GGF funds to organizations that we have helped less. On the other hand, we also considered directing more funds to organizations that have relied on Giving-Green-related funding and therefore would be less likely to raise funds from other sources. What is this nonprofit’s funding need for the rest of 2023 and 2024? We asked each nonprofit about its progress towards its 2023 fundraising goal and any macro trends that have helped or hindered its progress. For instance, large, unexpected donations would decrease a nonprofit’s funding need. How impactful will additional funds be at this point in time? For instance, we think GGF funds can be especially important for an organization when it has: little unrestricted funding; it may need funds for work that is important, but in which larger philanthropists giving restricted funds have not expressed interest smaller reserves; it may need funds to shore up those reserves, which improves ability to attract staff and funders a smaller budget; early-stage funding can be catalytic, enabling growth and therefore future fundraising a compelling near-term project that we thought was exceptionally high-impact What do GGF donors want? We spoke to a few GGF donors (thank you!) to understand what they expected their donations to support. We found that donors value the idea of a “diversified portfolio”, so we avoided granting to only one or two organizations. We also found that donors want us to use our most up-to-date knowledge to maximize impact. Several spreadsheets and tables later, each member of our team proposed an allocation, we discussed our reasoning and points of disagreement, and we agreed on a final allocation that reflected the considerations above. We chose to round to the ten thousands because we did not want to give an impression of false precision in our estimates of funding need.

Few investors choose individual stocks. Why not let a team of experts curate your climate donation portfolio? It has been just over a year since we launched the Giving Green Fund (GGF), our highest-impact giving option. Here’s a quick explainer, for supporters new and old, of what the Giving Green Fund does and how it works. What is the Giving Green Fund? The Giving Green Fund is a regranting fund operated by Giving What We Can and advised by Giving Green. Regranting fund: This means that you can donate money to GGF, and all of that money will be granted to other nonprofits. We take no fees. Operated by Giving What We Can: Giving What We Can is the nonprofit platform that holds and manages donations. Giving What We Can has set up systems to accept and regrant donations to a variety of organizations, so we opted to use their existing infrastructure to host GGF. For more information, see our FAQ on donating. Advised by Giving Green: Our team recommends grants from GGF to high-impact climate work based on our latest research and analysis. GGF generally supports our top climate nonprofits, which are the highest-impact climate change organizations our team has identified. There are two important caveats to this: Donations are granted based on our top nonprofits at the time of disbursement, not those listed at the time of your donation. In other words, we always grant based on our latest research. We may want GGF to fund work not housed within one of our top nonprofits if we believe that it may be equally or more impactful (see below). We aim to always be transparent about where funds are going and why. Updates on disbursements will be shared here, on our blog. Why do we believe GGF is our highest-impact giving option? A fund can make strategic grants that could be more impactful than giving directly to each of our top nonprofits. Some examples of work GGF could fund that are not otherwise accessible to small donors: Responding quickly to a time-sensitive, high-potential project from one of our top nonprofits Bolstering nonprofits that had a weak fundraising year, using our knowledge of nonprofits' funding gaps Providing seed funding to a new project that may not be able to launch without a risk-tolerant charitable donor GGF helps donors increase the responsiveness and impact of their climate donations by using these kinds of dynamic funding strategies, which we believe could have outsized impact. The potential for these strategies grows as the amount of money we can raise into GGF grows. Practically speaking, it is also easy to give to GGF. You can give and know that you are supporting a high-impact portfolio with just one transaction, and you can set up a recurring monthly gift. We have heard that GGF makes it easier for donors to commit to giving in line with their intentions for impact. How are GGF allocations decided? We recommend grants based on our team’s understanding of the highest-impact available giving opportunities in climate. What does this mean in practice? Let’s examine examples of past disbursements: Example: Equal allocation In general, dividing the funds equally among our top nonprofits is our default choice. This is for two main reasons: We generally do not rank our top nonprofits. Instead, we aim to build a list of nonprofits that meet a certain bar for impact. (For the more quantitatively-minded reader: in our cost-effectiveness analyses, we target a threshold of around $1/tCO2e for our top nonprofits.) In line with our value of humility, we choose not to compare these organizations against each other, as we think that additional donations are similarly impactful, within a range of uncertainty. We aim to be transparent. Dividing the funds equally means donors can easily understand where their money is going. We do not want to create complexity for the sake of complexity. We describe an example of equal allocation in our blog post on GGF’s first disbursements in Q1 and Q2 of 2023. Example: Unequal allocation based on funding need In some cases, we have compelling evidence that funds should be divided unequally for maximum impact. For instance: Varying success in fundraising: Some nonprofits raise more money than expected, while others might be facing unexpected difficulty. It would be more impactful to direct funds towards nonprofits that still have budget gaps for the year, especially those that have limited unrestricted funding or limited reserves. New opportunities that require funding: While we make recommendation decisions yearly, in November, nonprofits are constantly responding to changing circumstances and opportunities for their work. This might increase the impact and/or funding need that a nonprofit has in the middle of the year. We describe an example of unequal allocation in our blog post on GGF’s disbursements in Q3 and Q4 2023. How can I use the Giving Green Fund to maximize the impact of my climate donations? Giving to GGF is easy through our partnership with Giving What We Can. Find ways to give here. More about the Giving Green Fund Find a record of all past allocations here: 2023 Q1 + Q2 2023 Q3 + Q4

Climate charity evaluator Giving Green announces annual top giving strategies and nonprofits As the planet warms, the race to tackle climate change is also heating up. The investments in clean hydrogen and breakthroughs in geothermal energy that we witnessed in 2023 are just the start of the green transition. At Giving Green, we believe that individuals can make a real impact by reshaping the laws, norms, and systems that perpetuate unsustainable emissions. One effective and accessible climate action you can take is supporting high-impact climate nonprofits advocating for systemic change. Giving Green is a trusted guide for individuals, foundations, and businesses to make more effective climate giving decisions. As the green transition unfolds, we believe there are more opportunities than ever for smart giving. 2023 top climate nonprofit recommendations Our team of researchers spent a year finding timely giving strategies that have huge potential impact, but are relatively neglected by traditional climate funding. Our findings led us to double down on one area where we believe climate donors can have an outsized impact: Advancing key climate technologies through policy advocacy, research, and market support. We think that technological progress provides a uniquely powerful and feasible way to decarbonize, as it allows the energy transition to proceed while minimizing costs to quality of life and the economy. Having surveyed the policy and technology landscape in 2023, we highlight five key sectors ripe for innovation. And within those, we recommend six top climate charities for 2023. Below are our top climate nonprofit recommendations, in reverse alphabetical order: Deep underground, the Earth’s crust holds abundant heat that can supply renewable, carbon-free heat and reliable, on-demand electricity. However, conventional geothermal systems have been limited to places bordering the Earth’s tectonic plates. Project InnerSpace is fast-tracking next-generation technologies that can make geothermal energy available worldwide. It has a bold plan to reduce financial risks for new geothermal projects, making geothermal energy cheaper and more accessible, especially in densely populated areas in the Global South. We believe Project InnerSpace is a top player in the geothermal sector and that its emphasis on fast technology development and cost reduction can help geothermal expand globally. For more information, see our Project InnerSpace recommendation summary. Aviation and maritime shipping are challenging sectors to decarbonize and have not received much support from philanthropy in the past. Opportunity Green has a multi-pronged strategy for reducing emissions from aviation and maritime shipping. It pushes for ambitious regulations, promotes clean fuels, encourages companies to adopt greener fleets, and works to reduce demand for air travel. We think Opportunity Green has a strong theory of change that covers multiple ways to make a difference. We are especially excited about Opportunity Green’s efforts to elevate climate vulnerable countries in policy discussions, as we think this could improve the inclusivity of the process and the ambition level of policies. For more information, see our Opportunity Green recommendation summary. Heavy industries like steel and cement are the building blocks of the global economy. They account for around one-third of greenhouse gas emissions but have not been a major focus of governments or philanthropists. Industrious Labs runs comprehensive campaigns to decarbonize specific industries, targeting corporate actors and governments alike to adopt policies necessary to transform the sector. Critically, through coalition building, regranting, and training, it is scaling advocacy well beyond their own organization. We are excited about Industrious Labs’ actionable, industry-specific strategies and the strength of its leadership team. For more information, see our Industrious Labs recommendation summary. Livestock production is responsible for at least 10% of global emissions—livestock belch methane, require substantial (often deforested) grazing land, and consume a large amount of agricultural production. However, there has been little government effort to meaningfully reduce agricultural emissions. We think one of the most promising pathways for emissions reduction is shifting demand from carbon-intensive conventional livestock products to alternative proteins, such as plant-based and cultivated meat. The Good Food Institute (GFI) seeks to make alternative proteins as affordable and tasty as conventional products. It pushes for more government funding for research, fights for fair labeling, and helps cultivated meat get to market. We think GFI is a powerhouse in supporting alternative proteins, with impressive wins under its belt. For more information, see our Good Food Institute recommendation summary. We believe nuclear power can play an important part in reducing emissions because it provides consistent, clean energy with low land requirements. As part of a diverse energy portfolio, it can complement other energy sources, such as wind and solar. Good Energy Collective supports nuclear energy as part of an environmentally just climate change agenda. It backs advanced nuclear reactors, which are designed to be safer, cheaper, and more versatile than conventional reactors. We think Good Energy has carved a unique niche in nuclear power advocacy by focusing on the intersection of expanded deployment, community engagement, and justice. For more information, see our Good Energy recommendation summary. Having had a successful track record of pushing for climate solutions in the US, Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is now going global. By identifying barriers to technology deployment, engaging with stakeholders, and advocating for supportive policies, CATF aims to speed up the growth of low-carbon technologies to reduce emissions broadly and quickly. We are particularly impressed that CATF has built momentum for areas of innovation that need more funding support, such as superhot rock geothermal energy, zero-carbon fuels, and the decarbonization of aviation and maritime shipping. For more information, see our CATF recommendation summary. How we find effective climate charities We started by assessing various impact strategies and narrowing in on ones that we believed could substantially reduce emissions, were feasible, and needed more funding. This assessment involved conducting expert interviews and performing a comprehensive review of research literature, policy briefs, and industry reports. After developing a short list of impact areas, we explored the ecosystem of nonprofits operating in each space by speaking directly with organizations and other stakeholders. We used our findings to evaluate each organization’s theory of change and its capacity to absorb additional funding. This process ultimately leads us to a new set of top recommendations each year. For more information, see Giving Green’s Research Process. How you can take effective climate action We believe donating to high-impact climate change charities is an easy way to connect your micro action with macro change. Here are several ways you can take climate action, effectively: Learn more at our webinar Join our webinar on November 29 to learn more about our research and hear from some of our top recommendations. Donate to top climate nonprofits To easily support our top nonprofits, you can make a donation to the Giving Green Fund, which regrants to our top charities, with no management fees. Alternatively, you can donate directly to any of the recommended nonprofits. Support Giving Green’s research Each year, the Giving Green team spends thousands of hours to find and fund effective climate charities. We do not take any cut of donations to our recommendations, so we rely on generous donors to fund our research and communications efforts. Historically, every dollar donated to Giving Green’s operations has been converted into $11 of additional donations to high-impact climate charities. Support our work to be a climate impact multipler. Questions? Want to collaborate? Regardless of where you are along your climate journey, we would love to hear from you. Contact us here.

We are thrilled to announce that two of Giving Green’s proposals aimed at incentivizing the development of green steel and green aluminum won the first phase of a new innovation challenge. Our proposals were among the 39 entries that won Phase I of the inaugural Market Shaping Accelerator Innovation Challenge 2023 at the University of Chicago. The winning proposals, selected from a total of 186 submissions, will receive prizes of $4,000 each. The Market Shaping Accelerator (MSA) at University of Chicago was set up to explore market-shaping mechanisms that could spur innovation to solve global challenges. Specifically, the accelerator’s inaugural innovation challenge will award up to $2 million in total prizes for ideas that use “pull mechanisms” to spark innovation in climate change, as well as biosecurity and pandemic preparedness. What is a pull mechanism? Pull mechanisms are policy tools that encourage private sectors to invest in research and development for particular areas and bring those solutions to market. Unlike push mechanisms, which operate on a supply-driven approach by providing funding to stimulate innovation, pull mechanisms adopt a demand-driven approach and incentivize successful solutions. “These mechanisms ‘pull’ innovation by creating a demand for a specific product or service, which drives private sector investment and efforts towards developing and delivering that product or technological solution,” according to the accelerator. What is an advance market commitment? One example of a pull mechanism is an advance market commitment (AMC). Under an AMC, a purchaser commits to buying a product or service at a specified price and quantity once it becomes available. This commitment creates an “advance market” for the product, enticing innovators to invest in research and development to meet the demand. Giving Green is no stranger to AMCs. One of our top recommendations for businesses is Frontier, an advance market commitment that supports and accelerates the development and deployment of carbon removal technologies. Our evaluation of Frontier’s advance market commitment model found that it provides an accessible, anticipatory investment toward enabling future net-zero pledges by supporting the growth and development of a carbon removal market. It is one of Giving Green’s catalytic carbon removal investment recommendations for businesses. Why focus on heavy industry decarbonization? Heavy industries—such as steel, cement, fertilizers, and aluminum—are fundamental to modern society. They are also substantial contributors to climate change, accounting for one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions. The industrial sector is among the most difficult to decarbonize, while the demand for industrial products will only increase. There are no known substitutes for many of the sector’s products, so it is imperative that the emissions intensity of production substantially decrease as quickly as possible. In other words, the market for heavy industry products is large and is getting larger. To meet climate goals, we need to pave the way for market conditions to eventually favor green industrial products. Green aluminum The first of Giving Giving’s two entries looks at addressing market failures in green aluminum. It is estimated that the aluminum industry generated about 1.1 billion tons of CO2e emissions in 2018, and demand is projected to increase 80% by 2050. The bulk of the emissions from aluminum production come from refining, anode production, and smelting. Full decarbonization will require a suite of technological interventions—such as green hydrogen, inert anodes, mechanical vapor recompression, as well as carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS)—but the majority of emissions can be reduced through switching to fossil-free electricity. At present, the takeup of greener alternatives is largely voluntary given the “green premium” associated with these products. In the absence of mandates or regulations, industries are unlikely to assume the costs needed to substantially reduce emissions. This is a market failure that we believe pull mechanisms could help address. We see the transportation industry as a strong candidate to support this pull mechanism because of its outsized influence over the aluminum market. As the transportation industry begins to seriously account for its Scope 3 emissions, it will have a vested interest in reducing the emissions tied to aluminum production. In addition, the energy transition is projected to increase aluminum demand for various applications. For example, the Aluminium Association, an industry body, estimated that by 2026 the aluminum required for a single vehicle will increase by 12% to accommodate hybrid and EV designs. It is our impression that a large purchase commitment from even just a few companies in the automobile or aviation sector could substantially catalyze green aluminum. Low-carbon steel Our second entry considers market-based opportunities to accelerate the uptake of green steel. Steelmaking is highly pollution-intensive, producing, on average, 1.85 tons of CO2 for each ton of steel produced. And similar to the rising demand for aluminum, demand for steel is expected to rise by 30% by 2050. Creating green steel is technologically possible; the main challenge is making it commercially viable. While refinements in the technology are still required before scaling up the production of green steel, the primary barrier to widespread adoption is costs. In the commodity market, commercial purchasers have no incentives to purchase a greener steel product at a premium price. This creates a vicious cycle that does not encourage researchers and firms to invest in creating cleaner technology. We believe a pull mechanism can help to correct this market failure, and it is our impression that setting up an advance market commitment in the steel industry is particularly attractive compared to other sectors for several reasons. Firstly, the steel industry is a major contributor to global emissions, making it a high-impact target for decarbonization. Secondly, unlike the electricity and transport sectors where green alternatives are relatively cost competitive, the green premium associated with cleaner steel production is in more need of interventions like an AMC to catalyze the market. Moreover, decarbonizing steel through an AMC could yield positive spillover effects for tackling other climate challenges. Experts have found that green steel production could spur the growth of a green hydrogen industry. This symbiotic relationship would see the steel industry becoming a significant consumer and early adopter of hydrogen generated from 100% renewable sources. The development of the green hydrogen industry could then accelerate the decarbonization efforts in other sectors, such as agriculture—via the use of low-carbon fertilizers like green ammonia produced using green hydrogen—and international shipping—by switching from traditional shipping fuels to hydrogen-derived fuels like ammonia or methanol. Phase II of the MSA Innovation Challenge 2023 As we look ahead, a subset of the 39 winners from Phase I of the challenge will advance to the second phase, where the accelerator will support the teams to develop detailed proposals and turn their ideas into fully worked up contracts. We congratulate team members Dr. Lucia Simonelli, Jack Rafferty and Dr. Dan Stein who led the winning proposals. We look forward to updating Giving Green’s supporters on the next steps of this challenge.

Welcome to the world of climate change charities, where impactful initiatives are as diverse as the challenges they aim to address. At Giving Green, we often encounter the question: "What are the best climate change charities?" Nevertheless, we refrain from the phrase “best charities” for two main reasons. First, given that almost every activity we do today generates emissions, we need climate action on all fronts. “Everything, everywhere, all at once” was the rallying call by UN Secretary-General António Guterres at the launch of the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in March. Describing organizations as “the best” does not capture the diversity of approaches required to address the multifaceted challenges of climate change. Secondly, we find it relatively more difficult to assess the effectiveness of specific organizations than that of broader climate strategies. As part of our five-step research process, we start by conducting a broader landscape analysis to identify effective climate strategies, before diving into each strategy to assess organizations that work on the strategy. When comparing impact strategies, we might find research articles, insights from experienced experts, and strong cost comparisons. At the organizational level, however, the distinctions between shortlisted groups might be minor or hard to evaluate. This can occur when these groups adopt similar methods. Also, our final recommendations of organizations often rely on qualitative measures, such as leadership assessment, instead of high-confidence, quantitative comparisons. Humility, truth-seeking, and transparency are some of the guiding values of Giving Green. Instead of labeling our recommendations as the “best climate change charities,” we use a combination of metrics and heuristics to inform our search for “best bets”: climate impact strategies and initiatives that we believe are pulling the biggest levers when it comes to tackling climate change at speed and scale. Having reviewed hundreds of climate initiatives over the course of three years, we have identified several shared features among our top recommendations. 5 features of effective climate change nonprofits 1. They advocate for systemic change Dr. Dan Stein, founder of Giving Green, wrote in a blog for the Center for Effective Philanthropy: “It is impossible to win the fight against climate change by blanketing the world with little projects.” To create change everywhere all at once, and create change that lasts, we need to change the system. We encourage donors to look for organizations that change the laws, norms, and systems that perpetuate unsustainable emissions. In practice, this means finding climate change charities that advocate for effective climate policy and support climate technology development. An example in this respect is Clean Air Task Force (CATF), recommended by Giving Green in 2020, 2021, and 2022. In terms of policy advocacy, it boasts an impressive track record in shaping and ensuring the passage of large-scale policies and agreements, such as the Inflation Reduction Act and Global Methane Pledge. On technology development, CATF is a staunch supporter of the global scale-up of emerging technologies, such as carbon capture and zero-carbon liquid fuels. Read more about Giving Green’s evaluation of Clean Air Task Force. 2. They turn evidence into action In the face of a deepening climate crisis, it is vital for nonprofits to translate research into practical steps that drive real-world impact. We encourage climate donors to seek out nonprofits that use rigorous science to inform climate strategies, and then turn those strategies into practice. At Giving Green, we look for a clear track record of success and/or a plausible theory of change for future success. The Good Food Institute (GFI), one of Giving Green’s top recommendations in 2022, works on making alternative proteins competitive with conventional proteins, which we believe could reduce livestock consumption. In our food-sector emissions report, we found that livestock consumption plays an outsized role in food-sector emissions, which account for 23% to 42% of global greenhouse gas emissions. As part of GFI’s science workstream, it identifies research gaps, technological needs, and investment priorities across the alternative protein space. It then fills these gaps by funding catalytic research projects, while supporting researchers in translating their work into commercial ventures. Read Giving Green’s evaluation of the Good Food Institute. 3. They are nimble The climate landscape is constantly changing. Nimble teams can pivot quickly, even as the winds around them shift. One of Giving Green’s top recommendations that carefully times its policy work to the current political landscape is Evergreen Collaborative, founded by former staffers of Washington State Governor Jay Inslee’s 2020 presidential campaign. For example, when President Joseph Biden won the White House and it seemed likely that Democrats would lose the Senate, Evergreen Collaborative released a list of President Biden’s proposed executive orders for combating climate change within days of the final election results. Evergreen Collaborative compiled these executive orders as a means to advocate for climate action outside of legislation. Additionally, Evergreen Collaborative developed lists of five key action items 21 different government agencies should each take on climate as the names of each agency’s potential appointees were released to the public. This was a gap in climate advocacy that other environmental groups had not filled. After successfully advocating for many pieces of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the largest piece of climate legislation in US history, Evergreen Collaborative is now moving away from legislative advocacy and devoting more resources towards implementation, executive actions, and state-level work. The organization has put together comprehensive resources to help federal agencies, states, local communities, and other stakeholders take full advantage of the IRA. Read Giving Green’s evaluation of Evergreen Collaborative. 4. They work in a neglected space Is there a sector that is responsible for large and/or growing greenhouse gas emissions, but receives a relatively small share of philanthropic funding? This is one of the first questions we ask during our five-step research process. For example, in our report on decarbonizing heavy industry, we found that efforts to decarbonize heavy industry—which accounts for around one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions—might be relatively underfunded due to perceptions of low feasibility. We believe there are relatively high-leverage opportunities to effect business and government spending and decision-making that can productively absorb additional philanthropic funding. A new organization, Industrious Labs, has stepped up to address this need. Publicly launched in October 2022, it aims to strategically coordinate efforts to decarbonize heavy industry. It teams up with partner organizations to urge businesses to commit to low-carbon practices. It also pushes governments for regulations and public funding to accelerate the transition. We recommend Industrious Labs as one of our top climate nonprofits because it is focused on a highly neglected area, its leadership has a track record of success, and we think its comprehensive industry-specific strategies will pull on the right levers to drive industry’s transition. We also think Industrious Labs has substantial growth potential. Read Giving Green’s evaluation of Industrious Labs. 5. They have experts in the field We look for climate change charities with in-house technical expertise and go-to domain experts. For example, one of our newer recommendations, Good Energy Collective (GEC), is a nonprofit which advocates for progressive policies that support advanced reactor deployment. Founded in 2020, this new organization has a relatively short track record. However, we found that its team has several veterans in nuclear policy who have had previous policy wins outside of GEC. For example, Jackie Toth, GEC’s deputy director, previously worked as an Advisor for Policy and Content for Third Way’s Climate and Energy Program. According to GEC, she was active in the US federal budget appropriation process while at Third Way and has applied a similar strategy at GEC. More recently in July, Toth testified at a US House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing on several bills. She emphasized the need to increase the public’s ability to learn from and engage with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) as their licensing activities accelerate. Read Giving Green’s evaluation of Good Energy Collective. Climate is complex. Giving doesn’t have to be. ​ Donating to climate change nonprofits is one of the most accessible climate actions that an individual can take. Climate donations can be an effective way to connect micro actions with macro change, especially when given to organizations that advocate for systemic change. However, sifting through a wide range of options and pinpointing impactful initiatives requires time and expertise. This is why we created Giving Green. Our team of researchers spend thousands of hours each year assessing the ever-changing climate landscape and identifying places where your donations will have higher leverage. We do not believe that there are “best charities.” We do believe, however, that there are some organizations where your donations can be more strongly felt. To learn more about the other metrics and heuristic that we use to identify high-impact climate impact strategies and initiatives, read the detailed documentation of our research process. And while you are here, check out our list of evidence-based, cost-effective, and high-leverage climate change nonprofits. We find high-impact climate initiatives; you can turbocharge them.

Amid the growing chorus for more sustainable business practices, intentions are now standing in the glare of scrutiny. More than one third of the world’s largest companies have now committed to achieving net zero, according to Accenture. Yet, as these climate declarations gain momentum, a litmus test of good faith, viability, and adherence to rigorous standards is becoming increasingly common. We started Giving Green three years ago to provide evidence-based climate giving recommendations for individuals and foundations. Along the way, we have heard from many businesses that are long on the desire to make a positive impact on the planet, but short on practical and effective ways to reduce emissions. The problem? It is our impression that net-zero approaches are generally out of reach for most businesses at present. The challenges are twofold. Why some business climate strategies fall short First, our research found that many businesses, especially small and medium enterprises, find it difficult to reduce all or even much of their emissions at present. This is due to systemic issues such as reliance on the grid and complex supply chain factors. Take the example of a small digital startup for which most emissions come from cloud computing and occasional employee travel. Aside from reducing travel, direct emissions reductions would be difficult without broader systemic change in the power and transportation sectors. This emissions-reduction ceiling results in businesses looking to carbon offsets to balance out their footprint. As reported in recent media investigations over and over again, the efficacy of many offset projects is highly uncertain. Giving Green’s assessment of the voluntary carbon market also shows that it is extremely rare for a marketed credit to truly represent its advertised amount of emissions avoidance or removal. How to maximize the impact of corporate climate action Instead of assuming that conventional frameworks are optimal, we encourage businesses to explore the following question: given a set of available resources, how can a business maximize its climate impact? This fresh perspective allows for nuance, innovation, and the acknowledgment that, in certain situations, carbon accounting on paper may limit the real-world impact of a company’s climate action. While each company will inevitably need to confront constraints in its climate strategy, it can also weave in its unique set of resources and opportunities. To highlight the exciting potential of this “beyond net zero” approach, we convened a panel of four forward-looking companies that have gone beyond their own value chain to maximize their climate impact. 4 examples of higher-impact business climate strategies Microsoft The genesis of Microsoft's beyond-net-zero climate strategy dates back to 2012 when it became carbon neutral. The same year, the firm launched a first-of-a-kind carbon fee, an internal tax to set aside certain amounts of money for climate mitigation. The tech giant started off by purchasing renewable energy credits, which included offset avoidance credits, but it quickly realized that offsetting or avoiding was not enough. “We think those who can do more should,” said Annie Guo, senior program manager of carbon removal at Microsoft, during the webinar. Similar to Giving Green’s own motivating question, Guo said Microsoft asked itself, “If Microsoft were to set aside some resources, what form would that take and what should we target?” Part of its pathway is to reduce over half of its emissions and remove the rest, said Guo, adding that the firm’s removal portfolio includes both nature-based and engineered solutions for balance. It also seeks to create markets around medium-to-high-durability solutions. Additionally, one of Giving Green’s recommendations for businesses is to contribute to or start a climate action fund, such as the Giving Green Fund, to allocate resources across an array of climate mitigation initiatives. Microsoft did exactly that. Its Climate Innovation Fund acts as the venture capital arm of the firm’s sustainability team, investing in a portfolio of decarbonization projects. Frontier Another of Giving Green’s recommendations for businesses is to support technological innovation. While net-zero goals are impossible today, we believe supporting technologies that make net zero possible in the future is among the most effective ways to contribute directly to robust climate action. We encourage companies to support emerging climate technologies in sectors relevant to their own operations and/or to promote climate innovation more broadly. As an example, some companies are contributing to the development and scaling of carbon removal technologies. To achieve climate goals, carbon removal will be needed in addition to rapid emissions reductions, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist. This is to account for residual emissions from hard-to-abate sectors, as well as global temperature overshoot. Hausfather highlighted the importance of permanence in carbon removal. He pointed out that low-cost carbon offsets or temporary removals used by companies to achieve net-zero claims rarely fully neutralize the emissions of fossil fuels. “It’s causing a bit of a realization that we need to not just maximize tons on paper, but we need to maximize the actual real world impact of the dollars we spend on climate,” said Hausfather of recent investigations into “phantom carbon offsets”. Hausfather now leads climate research at Frontier, an advance market commitment (AMC) intended to support and accelerate the development and deployment of carbon removal technologies. Created by Stripe and founding firms like Alphabet, Shopify, Meta, and McKinsey & Company, the scheme now boasts Autodesk, JP Morgan Chase & Co., H&M Group and Workaday among its partners. Giving Green’s evaluation of Frontier’s advance market commitment model found that it provides an accessible, anticipatory investment toward enabling future net-zero pledges by supporting the growth and development of a carbon removal market. It is one of Giving Green’s catalytic carbon removal investment recommendations for businesses. Google In 2007, Google became carbon neutral, initially through the purchase of high-quality carbon offsets, then through direct purchase of renewable energy via power purchase agreements. Since 2017, the firm has matched 100% of its annual electricity use with renewable energy purchases. “When we achieved our 100% annual matching goal, we saw it as an important milestone. But we recognized that 100% annual volumetric matching is not the same as using carbon-free electricity everywhere and at all times,” said Devon Swezey with Google’s global energy markets and policy team. A study by Princeton’s Zero Lab confirms this, concluding that 24/7 carbon-free energy procurement has a higher impact on emissions reduction and power sector transformation than the more common approach of offsetting fossil energy consumption through renewable energy purchases. Climate experts are calling for companies to move from annual matching to matching more of their demand on an hourly basis, which will reduce grid electricity emissions, lead to faster retirement of fossil fuels, and accelerate the commercialization of advanced clean technologies. Google is pursuing this goal through three tracks. First, the firm is set to buy more and different types of clean energy. Secondly, it seeks to use its investment and purchasing power to commercialize advanced technologies such as geothermal. Thirdly, at the ecosystem level, it aims to enable more consumers to purchase 24/7 carbon-free energy, as well as advocate for policies that support grid decarbonization. Mapbox With 690 employees, Mapbox, a provider of custom online maps, was the smallest company among our panel. Its climate strategy provides a unique case study for how small-to-medium enterprises can also influence systemic change through corporate climate action. “Due to size and the nature of our business, we do have a relatively small corporate carbon footprint, but that doesn't mean we deprioritize our climate commitments,” said Marena Smith, manager of Mapbox’s social impact team. “In fact we’ve used that as motivation to find ways to go further with our climate commitments.” Giving Green encourages companies to engage in policy, as we believe that the private sector stands to benefit from moving beyond obstruction or inaction toward proactively advocating for robust climate policy. For companies that do not have a direct policy advocacy arm, an indirect but arguably more accessible way is to donate to highly effective organizations working on climate policy advocacy. Building on Giving Green’s recommendations, Mapbox has donated to Clean Air Task Force, which has an impressive track record of influencing large-scale policies and agreements such as the Inflation Reduction Act and Global Methane Pledge. When it comes to carbon credits, Mapbox’s purchases were from high-quality offset projects such as refrigerant destruction through Tradewater. These purchases were then supplemented by investment in durable carbon removal. In addition to dedicated climate investment, Mapbox has evolved to leverage its products and customers to further scale its impact. For example, as a mapping and navigation platform company, Mapbox works with logistics and delivery companies to enhance efficient fleet usage, reducing customers’ emissions through the use of Mapbox technology. “We are leaning into how our customer base and our products can have an outsized impact on emissions, far beyond what our corporate carbon footprint would be,” said Smith. An actionable guide to effective corporate climate action A growing number of companies like the ones featured in our panel are going beyond net zero: leveraging their resources innovatively to more deeply influence climate progress. Your company can be one of them. Giving Green has a comprehensive guide for businesses to design effective business climate strategy and maximize the impact of corporate climate action. Our white paper proposes four evidence-backed, actionable climate strategies, followed by concrete recommendations on how companies can go beyond their own carbon footprint to support policy change, technological innovation, carbon removal, and more. We offer free 1:1 consultations to businesses large and small. Say hello here.

Giving Green is excited to announce a new partnership with Effective Altruism Australia (EAA) on the launch of their new climate fund: the EAA Environment Fund. This fund will make it easier for Australians to make tax-efficient donations to highly impactful climate charities. Effective Altruism Australia is a non-profit organization that promotes the use of evidence and reason to do good. The organization works to identify and support the most effective ways to improve the world, and this new fund marks the expansion of their work to include charities which work to address climate change. The new climate fund will be open to donations from individuals, businesses, and foundations in Australia, and will support a portfolio of high impact climate charities. By making it easier for Australians to support highly effective climate charities, the fund will help Australians to reduce emissions and accelerate the transition to a cleaner future. Giving Green has previously released Australia-specific recommendations to advise Australians on how to fight climate change with their donations in an effective, evidence-based way. However, until now Australians have been unable to make tax deductible donations to Giving Green’s top recommended charities, or to international climate charities that are not registered in Australia. This new fund aims to streamline tax-efficient donations and offer donors more freedom to support a wider variety of high impact climate charities. "We're delighted to partner with Giving Green to launch this new climate fund," said Michael Noetel, director of Effective Altruism Australia. "This fund will make it easier for Australians to support highly effective climate charities and make a real difference in the fight against climate change." All donations to the new EAA environment fund are tax-deductible to Australian donors and go directly to high impact charities. Note: EAA and EAAE are separate legal entities. Effective Altruism Australia is a registered charity, ABN: 87608863467 Effective Altruism Australia Environment is a registered charity, ABN 57659447417

How individuals can harness evidence to fight climate change, effectively You have read the news reports about record-breaking extreme temperatures. You have seen pictures of skies turned yellow by wildfire smoke. You have heard stories about prolonged droughts wreaking havoc on everyday life and the ecosystem. The question on many of our minds is: what can we do about climate change? What can I do about climate change? We had the same questions. So we started Giving Green. Credit: Raphael Pouget / Climate Visuals Countdown Not all climate actions are equal There is no shortage of guidance on climate action, from making lifestyle changes to purchasing carbon offsets. However, our research identified three problems that prevent people from taking effective actions to fight climate change. 1. Many climate call-to-actions are not actionable The biggest lever in the climate fight is to push for systemic change in policy and technology. But these system-level call-to-actions are not always actionable on an individual level. How can an average person “decarbonize the grid” or “start an agricultural revolution”? 2. Many climate actions are ineffective When climate actions do take place on the ground, not all of them are based on the best available scientific evidence. Studies have shown that some high-profile, well-meaning initiatives—such as the Clean Development Mechanism and decades of expensive tree-planting programs in India—have been major disappointments. Confidence in the effectiveness of climate actions is also low among those who fund them. According to a recent report by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, only 11% of climate funders rated their own foundation’s strategy for addressing climate change as very effective. A paltry 4% said that efforts by philanthropic foundations, broadly, are very effective. 3. Most individuals lack access to evidence-based climate advice While billionaire philanthropists and large companies tend to have in-house expertise, many organizations and almost all individuals do not have easy access to the evidence they need to direct their resources effectively. Maximizing the impact of climate actions How can an individual overcome these headwinds and identify effective ways to fight climate change? Our answer: support evidence-based, cost-effective, and high-leverage policy advocacy organizations that change the norms, systems, and laws that shape greenhouse gas emissions. There are many ways to contribute to systemic change, from joining a social movement to working in governments. We focus on individual giving and philanthropy because we believe in the flexibility and risk-taking of philanthropic capital. It is best suited to support less measurable initiatives that can bring out grand, systemic change. And if you think you need to be a millionaire to give effectively, think again. When giving to high-impact initiatives, every dollar can make a difference. At Giving Green, we spend thousands of hours of research every year finding climate organizations that maximize the impact of your climate donations. We use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodologies—such as expert interviews, literature reviews, and cost-effectiveness analyses—to filter through the miscellany of climate initiatives. Our research over the past three years led us to strongly believe that the most bang for your buck in climate giving comes from funding organizations working to make systemic change in policy and technology. For example, heavy industries like steel and cement are the literal building blocks of the global economy. They also account for one-third of emissions, but have received very little attention from government or philanthropy. Industrious Labs, one of our top climate nonprofits recommendations for 2022, is a new organization dedicated to helping global heavy industry go green. In collaboration with partner organizations, Industrious Labs advocates to corporations to make low-carbon commitments, and applies legal and political pressure to governments to ensure there is regulation and public funding to accelerate the transition to a cleaner industrial sector. We are excited about Industrious Labs’ potential for heavy industry decarbonization because it is focused on a highly neglected area, its leadership has a track record of success, and we think its comprehensive industry-specific strategies will pull on the right levers to drive heavy industries’ transition. But what about buying carbon offsets? Many people come to Giving Green looking to purchase carbon offsets to offset their personal carbon footprints. While we welcome the interest in making an impact, numerous recent investigations into “junk carbon offsets” and “worthless carbon offsets” have made it clear that many of these initiatives do not deliver their promised climate impact. At Giving Green, we believe in decarbonizing the future, not just offsetting the past. One tool from our evaluation toolkit—cost-effectiveness analysis—also lends this argument some quantitative credence. As an example, we developed a model to predict emissions reductions resulting from various policies under consideration in the United States between 2021 and 2022. Many of these policies were eventually included in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. We then tried to determine the impact of different climate organizations on the inclusion of specific laws in the bill, as well as the likelihood of passing a climate-related legislation. The findings were remarkably insightful. Even when we applied conservative assumptions in our model, such as the level of influence exerted by certain organizations, advocacy groups appeared to be considerably more cost-effective than the most effective offsets available. We do, however, recommend a few high-quality carbon offset providers. These recommendations are meant for businesses that, in addition to reducing emissions in their own operations, are offsetting hard-to-abate emissions as part of a business net-zero commitment. Taking climate action, effectively If you are an individual or a foundation, we recommend donating to our top recommendations for climate nonprofits. These are deeply researched, carefully vetted climate giving opportunities in policy advocacy that can have a huge potential for impact. If you are a business, read Giving Green’s comprehensive corporate climate strategy that helps you avoid corporate greenwashing and maximize real climate impact, including setting up a climate action fund to support highly impactful climate initiatives. If you find our research helpful, consider supporting Giving Green’s operations. Every $1 donated to Giving Green’s research and operations has been converted into $8 of support for high-impact climate initiatives.