Opportunity Green: Recommendation

Last updated in November 2024.

Opportunity Green is one of the top climate nonprofits selected by Giving Green in 2024. We previously recommended Opportunity Green in 2023.

Aviation and maritime shipping are challenging sectors to decarbonize and have been historically overlooked by philanthropic efforts. Reducing these sectors’ emissions will require targeted regulation and policy promoting clean, alternative fuels, as well as industry commitment to purchasing these fuels and transitioning existing fleets. Opportunity Green tackles these interventions through a diversified approach leveraging industry coalitions, policy, and law. The organization also seeks to identify where gaps exist in law and regulation more broadly, and how to address these gaps to accelerate decarbonization in other sectors, including buildings, steel, and agriculture. We have not assessed this broader work and focused our recommendation on Opportunity Green’s aviation and maritime shipping efforts.

Opportunity Green is a young organization and could benefit from additional funding to open an office in Brussels, Belgium to more closely work on EU legislation and launch legal action, build staffing capacity across its programs, develop emerging workstreams in new areas such as buildings, steel, and agriculture, and add senior lawyers to advise on strategy. 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 deep dive on Opportunity Green, a summary below, and our broader report on decarbonizing aviation and maritime shipping.

What is Opportunity Green? 

Opportunity Green is a UK-based nonprofit organization focused on filling the gaps in global climate policy. Founded in 2021, it began by focusing on decarbonizing aviation and maritime shipping via policy, economic, and legal avenues.

How could Opportunity Green help address climate change?

Opportunity Green strives to cut emissions in aviation and maritime shipping by advocating for ambitious regulations, expanding the use of clean alternative fuels,  pushing the private sector to adopt greener fleets and fuels, and in aviation, reducing demand for air travel. 

What does Opportunity Green do?

Opportunity Green’s approach to decarbonizing aviation and maritime shipping incorporates three main strategies:

• Facilitating a private-sector coalition to promote clean alternative fuels;

• Increasing representation from climate-vulnerable countries in international policy discussions;

• Identifying and pursuing strategic legal action.

What would Opportunity Green do with your donation?

Opportunity Green is a young and flourishing organization with a comprehensive strategy and robust plan for growth. Opportunity Green’s leadership values a healthy work culture and would invest additional funds to hold in reserve to ensure employee security. With additional funding, it would hire staff to increase capacity across its aviation and shipping programs,  open an office in Brussels to more closely work with the EU institutions on legislation and launch legal action, develop emerging workstreams in new areas such as buildings, agriculture, and steel, and add senior lawyers to its team to advise on strategy.

Why is Giving Green excited about Opportunity Green?

Given that aviation and maritime shipping are challenging to decarbonize and have been historically overlooked by philanthropic efforts, we are excited that Opportunity Green has focused much of its work on these sectors. We think Opportunity Green has a compelling and impactful theory of change that leverages multiple pathways of influence, including coalition and capacity building, policy advocacy, and legal action.

Explore ways to give to Opportunity Green and more.

Opportunity Green is a registered charity in the UK. This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.