Foundations are increasingly aligning their endowments and assets with climate work, a new report published by Philea and WINGS has found.

The biggest collective shift among foundations working to integrate climate in their institutions over the last year was in endowments and assets, with signatories ‘increasingly adopting climate aware investment strategies, positive or negative screening, divestment, and impact investing.’ 

International Philanthropy Commitment on Climate Change: Progress Report 2, the second of its kind after it first launched last year, looked at how 23 out of 48 signatories to the commitment have fared on climate action. Via a pillared system, the commitments provide structured support for foundations to embed climate across their work. The International Commitment currently has 64 signatories from across the globe since its launch in 2021. 

The shift also signalled that ‘some foundations are mobilising their full financial influence in support of climate goals.’ 

Despite significant progress, shifting endowments and assets remains the hardest pillar for signatories to implement. 

Other challenges include transparency, which remains uneven and few signatories ‘publicly identifying as International Commitment signatories despite increased level of progress reporting.’ 

The report said that signatories with a ‘structured, forward-looking climate action plan are three times more likely to make progress,’ while foundation without a plan should develop one based on the commitment’s framework. 

The report is a product of the European Philanthropy Coalition for Climate, working on supporting national commitments in Europe and acts as the main point of contact for European signatories that have signed the International Commitment.

Read the full article about climate-aware investment by Shafi Musaddique at Alliance Magazine.