Key Impact Points:

• The Giving to Amplify Earth Action initiative catalyses global market investments for climate and nature solutions through a Big Bets Accelerator, a new amplifier of innovative public-private-philanthropic partnerships.
• Initiative partners will launch a corporate philanthropy challenge at the Annual Meeting 2024 to mobilize $1 billion of catalytic capital towards climate and nature interventions by 2030.
• Asian partners announce $777 million of new capital in Singapore for innovative solutions in education, climate and health, and $3 billion for green tech start-ups in Hong Kong.

The World Economic Forum, supported by leading private sector and philanthropic partners of the Giving to Amplify Earth Action initiative (GAEA), announces today new commitments to unlock billions of dollars to finance climate and nature solutions. GAEA also announces a new Big Bets Accelerator, which will amplify and accelerate innovative public-private-philanthropic partnerships globally.

In January 2023, GAEA launched a call to action to partners to come together and co-design a global initiative to fund and grow new and existing public, private and philanthropic partnerships (PPPPs) to help unlock the $3.5+ trillion of financing needed each year to reach net zero, reverse nature loss and restore biodiversity by 2050.

“To address the global challenges particularly related to climate and nature, governments and businesses have to work together,” said Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum and GAEA Global Co-Chair. “Even under optimal conditions, this collaboration will not be sufficient if we do not add new financial muscle by bringing philanthropy into this coalition. The public-private philanthropic vehicle created with GAEA is the best hope to safeguard the well-being of future generations.”

With support from GAEA knowledge partner McKinsey Sustainability, the initiative has identified 31 global investment opportunities for public-private-philanthropic collaboration. These include projects that focus on phasing out coal, creating sustainable rice value chains, advancing clean cooling options, increasing uptake of green steel and electric vehicles and scaling up offshore wind power.

“Through GAEA, we are seeing a new type of global collaboration where organizations from different walks of life choose to focus on the shared goal of combating climate change and come together to send a strong message to key markets,” said Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and GAEA Global Co-Chair. “This is philanthropy extending a hand to the private sector and saying: ‘We are in this together, we are willing to help you transition your business models faster and at scale.”

Scaling and catalysing corporate leadership is the next challenge for GAEA in 2024. The initiative will count on the Green Climate Fund (GCF) as an anchor partner to corporates, governments and philanthropies. GCF currently has approved $13.5 billion in funding; with its recently launched 50by30 vision, the fund will manage $50 billion in climate investment by 2030.

“The Green Climate Fund is proud to join forces with the GAEA initiative, which we believe will enhance our impact as the world’s largest multilateral climate fund,” said Mafalda Duarte, Executive Director of the Green Climate Fund. “Partnerships with businesses and philanthropies have never been more important, and concessional capital like that from GCF gives financiers across sectors the confidence they need to support the aspirations of developing countries. Together, we can invest in more than just projects; we can invest in hope, solutions and our shared future.”

At the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2024, GAEA is bringing together a community of corporate foundations and leading philanthropies to launch a Corporate Philanthropy Challenge for People and Planet to mobilize $1 billion of smart, catalytic capital towards climate and nature interventions by 2030. Partners include the Ares Charitable Foundation, BMW Foundation Herbert Quandt, Foundation S (Sanofi), Google.org, Grundfos Foundation, Salesforce, Temasek Trust, The Coca-Cola Foundation, Workday Foundation, UBS Optimus Foundation and the IKEA Foundation.

“Corporates have many ways to continue to put resources into climate and nature solutions. From our treasury, our startup strategy, our procurement, our bonds and our corporate philanthropies,” said Suzanne DiBianca, Executive Vice-President and Chief Impact Officer of Salesforce. “We are happy to join the GAEA corporate philanthropy challenge to inspire and encourage more corporate philanthropies to pivot into climate and nature solutions and keep the 1.5°C target alive and raising $1 billion of catalytic resources to drive new solutions.”

In Asia, GAEA and partners are also raising the bar and re-imagining philanthropy in the region. In South-East Asia, the Philanthropy Asia Alliance (PAA), a Temasek Trust initiative, was launched with over 80 global members pledging $777 million to catalyse innovative solutions for global environmental and social challenges. In Hong Kong, the Institute for Sustainability & Technology (IST) will launch a One Earth Impact investing alliance for Asia and Greater China, raising $3 billion over the next three years in venture capital investment in green innovation and tech start-ups.

“Philanthropy can be deployed to bridge the gap between giving away money to do good and investing capital to make good returns. That is where the big money and big impacts will come from,” said Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates and GAEA Global Co-Chair.

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GAEA is launching a Big Bets Accelerator, aiming to incubate big ideas and aggregate philanthropic resources with development finance and public efforts to support private finance flow and accelerate corporate action. The accelerator will focus on five thematic areas: nature, industry, energy, food and climate intersections. At the Annual Meeting 2024, GAEA announced it will help to amplify and scale existing initiatives (Breathe Cities, Mangroves Breakthrough, Energy Transition Accelerator, Humanitarian and Resilience Investing Initiative, Coal to Renewables Initiative) and explore new ones.