Urgent action is needed to avoid more catastrophic impacts of climate change on people and the planet, urges international research. Yet, environmental philanthropy though growing still only accounts for a very small proportion of all philanthropic funding. According to several reports (dating from 2021 and 2022), it represents 2 percent of global funding, 5 percent of European funding, and 3 percent of French funding (474 million).

However, things have been moving in the philanthropic sector in the latest years. Since the 2020s, the global movement #PhilanthropyForClimate represents a turning point in terms of foundations taking on the climate crisis—alongside the formation of several coalitions of foundations for climate action, such as the Coalition française des fondations pour le Climat (French Coalition of Foundations for the Climate, or ‘CffC’). Since then, the movement has been developing across Europe, especially through Philea, and internationally through WINGs, aiming at mobilising all foundations to tackle environmental issues, even those not originally focused on the environment.

Onboarding the whole sector is a challenge itself and means reframing the narrative around these issues, by showing how the climate crisis will affect everyone everywhere and intersects with all the other issues—social, economic, democratic, geopolitical etc. Moving beyond the silos to embrace a systems approach to the environmental transition, while giving the most disadvantaged a special attention (as they are the least responsible, yet the most affected by the effects of the climate crisis) and including them, will help the sector, including French funders, build a more just and fair society. 

Moreover, the latest IPCC reports and the recommendations of the United Nations underline that a just transition is essential if we are to combat climate disruption. In this sense, just transition emerges as a concept that philanthropy could seize upon to fulfil its public good mission, as it combines both environmental and social stakes alike. Yet it seems to have had thus far little practical application in the sector, at least for French funders. This raises two main questions: How is philanthropy in France currently tackling environmental issues? What changes are or could be envisaged to enable the sector to develop a just transition philanthropy?

Read the full article about French funders and climate philanthropy by Anne Monier, Anne Cornilleau, and Kristy Romain at Alliance Magazine.