Confluence Philanthropy
At this year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Indigenous peoples represented the second largest civil society group in attendance. Indigenous peoples and communities often lie at the frontier of climate change, experiencing some of the earliest and most disruptive effects of the global climate crisis. This is all too ironic given the fact that indigenous peoples have imparted so many lessons on sustainable living and environmental stewardship, yet they continually bear a disproportionate burden of the damages of anthropogenic climate change. Their ...
Kylee Barton, World Resources Institute
On the heels of COP26, Confluence convened a two-hour virtual seminar to hear from four scientists who are using advanced modeling and hard data to build on the results and implications from the COP26 climate talks. Grounding decision-making in science cuts through the human complexity providing clarity about the tough decisions – and enormous opportunities – before us. As part of Confluence’s Call to Net Zero, this seminar encouraged investors and their investment managers to ground commitments and investment decisions in science-based ...
Aimée Christensen, Christensen Family Office
This autumn has been packed with unprecedented activity on climate aimed toward COP26, the COVID-delayed 26th gathering of the governmental Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Along with the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, the UNFCCC is one of two global treaties signed at the Earth Summit in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro, setting forth the vital frameworks to protect nature and the stability of our planet’s climate system. I attended the Rio summit as a young advocate, not in the ...
Ed Dean, Ashden
The COP26 climate talks brought hope and frustration – but also reminded us of the unique role philanthropy can play in creating a fair and sustainable world.
Despite the hard work and good intentions of many of the delegates (fossil fuel lobbyists aside), the agreement reached in Glasgow falls very short of launching the rapid transition needed to stay within 1.5 degrees of warming.
However, it is too easy to blame countries like India and South Africa for pulling back on the phase out of fossil fuels. Most of the carbon currently in the ...
Michael Northrup, Rockefeller Brothers Fund
Note from Confluence President & CEO Dana Lanza:
Confluence friends, please read this piece from Environmental Finance by Michael Northrop, Program Director, Sustainable Development at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund: GFANZ fails to deliver at COP26.
Northrop concludes that the Global Finance Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ) organized by Mark Carney and launched at COP26 lacks specifics on how banks and investors will align their lending and investments to a 1.5 degree Celsius future.
Given the urgent need, described by the International ...
Julia Jackson, Grounded
COP has proven to be ineffective, considering we’re currently on track to reach 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century under current policies. Lips are moving – and have been moving since 2015 – but the atmosphere isn’t taking note of who’s talking. What we need now is real action, and it was sorely lacking at COP26. While more than 140 countries put forward net zero goals, there is little confidence those ambitions will be achieved. Currently, only 7 countries are on track to stay well below 1.5 degrees and those countries are mostly ...
Confluence Philanthropy
Trauma is at the root of our inaction in the face of Climate Change. Trauma symptoms of numbness, apathy, hyper-activation and polarization dramatically slow down our ability to respond adequately. Our lack of relationship to the crisis is part of the crisis. The Pocket Project aims to restore our collective ability to relate sensitively and compassionately thus opening up to an increased flow of information and possibility. During COP26, Confluence’s President & CEO, Dana Lanza and Partner & Chairperson of Veris Wealth Partners, Patricia ...
Shilpa Patel, ClimateWorks Foundation
As part of Confluence’s series of climate-themed virtual convenings in and around COP26, I had the great pleasure to talk with Moutushi Sengupta of MacArthur Foundation, Uday Khemka of the SUN Group, and Pratap Raju of New Energy Nexus and Climate Collective Foundation on their strategies to address climate change in India and advance India’s climate ambition.[1] Here are some highlights.
Context
India plays a critical role in the direction of our climate future. It is the third largest emitter in absolute terms, and although its ...
Dana Lanza, Confluence Philanthropy
In parallel with COP 26 in Glasgow this week, Confluence announces a call to action to our Members planning to achieve Net Zero. We are here to support you during the coming year as you shape your commitments, in all shapes and sizes, no matter how modest or ambitious, to reach Net Zero.
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If the Covid-19 pandemic has taught us anything, it is that the age-old environmental mantra, ‘Think Globally, Act Locally,’ has enormous impact. Individual actions, no matter how seemingly small, such as wearing a ...
Loren Blackford, Sierra Club Foundation
After college, and a year interning with the Quaker UN Office, I joined the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service just before the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio. There, I helped evaluate NGO negotiations, which went a lot better than the governmental ones across town. NGOs from the Global South made a powerful case to the Northern “Big Greens” that, without focusing on people and their social and economic well-being, climate and conservation efforts would fail.
By the time I attended the Paris Climate Summit as a Sierra Club Board member 23 (!) ...
Elizabeth McGeveran and Dan Thiede, McKnight Foundation
When Hurricane Ida ripped through southern Louisiana, the communities hit hardest by the storm were left without power—no air conditioning, fans, refrigerators, lights, or life-saving equipment. New Orleans solar company PosiGen stepped in to deploy 12 solar-powered stations with their partners at disaster supply sites, community centers, fire stations, and churches in the area to support local residents. If it’s up to forward-thinking PosiGen, their many low-income solar customers won’t be in the dark when the next climate disaster ...
Tim Dunn, Terra Alpha Investments
Some numbers matter more than others. At this moment, 1.5°C might be the most important number in the world. Our ability to focus on that number today, and in the decade ahead, will have a dramatic and lasting impact on every living thing on the planet (e.g. people, plants, crops, trees, animals). In turn, those impacts will affect all aspects of our society, the economy, and yes, our investment portfolios.
What is the significance of 1.5°C?
It is the consensus amongst climate scientists that we must strive to limit our planet’s ...
Ivan Frishberg, Amalgamated Foundation
Net Zero commitments are now hitting the mainstream, and the breakneck pace of socializing and making these commitments is unheralded. The speed of adoption for this framework is particularly notable for its ambition and just how darned hard it will be to succeed. Allow me to be brutally honest as the context for why every organization should follow this same path with what might seem like reckless abandon.
The history of US and global failures on climate is well established. In the US, we can look at the Clean Power Plan, Waxman-Markey, ...
Dana Lanza, Confluence Philanthropy
This week the The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its report—based upon current emissions projections—about long-term climate change impacts. Scene setting has already begun around the globe, as wildfire, flooding, and unpredictable agricultural conditions becomes regular news. Absorbing this information is hard to process alone. I am reaching out to spur discussion within the Confluence community.
First off, I want to acknowledge all the change agents that have carried these findings for over a decade and ...
Jessica Brooks, Sunwealth
I was tucking my oldest son into bed when the question came.
“Mom, have you ever wanted to go to bed and not wake up?”
He was in fifth grade.
“The world is scary,” he continued. He told me he was worried about hurricanes, school shootings, wild fires, our then-president, who every day seemed like he was trying to make things worse. “It doesn’t feel like it’s getting any better.”
These moments never come when you’re ready for them.
“It feels that way sometimes,” I told him, trying to respond simply and from ...
Dana Lanza, Confluence Philanthropy
Long before the COVID-induced quarantine began, Confluence decided to entitle our 2021 Gathering “Embrace and Inspire.” At the time, it seemed like a prescient idea that was about scaling the values-aligned investing industry. We had no idea that it would become about our physical reality, as over the next year and a half our community would tilt into virtual isolation and sometimes feelings of frustration, uncertainty, and perhaps even hopelessness about the prevailing health and political crises, at a time when we could not physically ...
Catherine Burnett, Phillips Foundation
In philanthropy, as elsewhere, innovation often appears in smaller, unheralded organizations before it does in large, well known entities. Case in point: In 2018, the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) offered a “Roadmap for the Future of Impact Investing,” which outlined a plan to reshape financial markets by integrating social and environmental impact considerations into every investment decision. But in preceding decades—long before the practice gained public recognition—several private foundations and public charities with less than ...
Katherine Kroll, Brown Advisory
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing has reached an inflection point. A substantial proportion of institutional assets are now invested under some sort of ESG mandate (33% in 2020, according to U.S. SIF).
A natural concern with ESG going mainstream is whether or not it will be diluted by the many new entrants throwing their hats in the ring. One of the most-discussed ESG topics in the media over the past year has been the threat of “greenwashing,” and a variety of regulatory frameworks are emerging to set a minimum or ...
Sarah DeNicola, Confluence Philanthropy
What would our world look like if we were to truly transform the way we relate to capital, to our land and water, and to one another?
This question underpinned day two of Confluence Philanthropy’s 11th Annual Practitioners Gathering: Embrace & Inspire, which focused on the theme “Investing for Social Equity.”
The day began with a keynote address by Dr. john a. powell, Director of the Othering and Belonging Institute and Professor of Law, African American and Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley. Dr. powell shared the concept ...
Darya Allen-Attar, Morgan Stanley
Day 2 of Confluence Philanthropy’s 11th Annual Practitioners Gathering provided a venue for an honest conversation about Access to Capital for Women and Underrepresented People of Color. We know that many values-oriented asset owners are focused on equity and inclusion and seek to align investment portfolios with that mission. We are so excited about this trend and hope it will continue, but the flow of capital to managers that represent true equity and inclusion is just starting. Our panel during the conference provided great insight as to ...
