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Carbon Removal Standards Initiative // BACK Overview The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI), a US-based initiative fiscally sponsored by the nonprofit Carbon180. This is one of a series of ecosystem grants supporting foundational work to unlock innovative policy approaches for durable CDR demand. CRSI falls within our philanthropic strategy of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) . Please see Giving Green’s deep dive report on CDR for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties. Last updated: October 2024 What is the Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI)? The Carbon Removal Standards Initiative (CRSI) was launched in 2024 to provide technical assistance to NGOs and policymakers on CDR quantification standards applicable across industries and jurisdictions. Foundational to CRSI’s mission is the belief that long-term demand for CDR services will be driven by policy. To achieve gigaton scale, CDR must be embedded across industries and policy mechanisms, necessitating context-driven quantification standards. What are we funding at CRSI, and how could it help scale demand for CDR? We are funding CRSI to support its ongoing and future work on developing and shaping standards to match the needs and opportunities of a diverse array of policy vehicles . Given that current demand is driven by credit-based carbon markets, especially the voluntary market, the development of requisite standards and quantification frameworks has largely reflected the needs and the structures of corporations currently buying carbon removal credits. However, these tools may not be directly transferable or applicable to more policy-driven approaches, and creating fit-for-purpose standards will help to unlock demand outside of existing market regimes. CRSI’s portfolio of ongoing and planned projects includes: Learning from industry case studies : CRSI is studying how standards development happened in other emerging technology areas, e.g., bioinformatics, soil carbon, USDA organic, telecom, and low-carbon construction materials, to determine relevant successes and failure modes and inform the organization’s strategy and tactics for the next one to three years. Expanding viable policy contexts for enhanced rock weathering (ERW) : CRSI is working to create a framework for jurisdictional-level monitoring of carbon removal through ERW on agricultural lands to fit pay-for-practice subsidies. The existing quantification standards were developed for per-ton attribution of removal to a specific supplier; tailoring standards for other contexts could significantly reduce cost and accelerate the speed of deployment. Analyzing the impact of differing methodologies on net removal quantification and improving consistency across jurisdictions: CRSI plans to conduct a comparative analysis of methodologies to assess differences in boundary setting and net removal quantification. For example, it will analyze the impact of different energy accounting methodologies embedded in direct air capture (DAC) regulations across jurisdictions. Given the difficulty of intra- and inter-governmental coordination on methodology development, CRSI’s work will support improved coordination and reduced barriers to commercialization. Increasing transparency of data and information : Increased transparency and accessibility of data and information underpinning CDR standards and research at large will improve rigor, build trust, and accelerate deployment. CRSI plans to identify copyright and IP barriers to accessing CDR standards and develop recommendations to eliminate these barriers and improve access. Why do we think CRSI will use this funding well? Given that CRSI launched in 2024, we do not have a track record to assess. However, we are excited by its choice to focus on an impact area that we think holds high potential for impact yet remains underexplored, the experience of its leadership, and its portfolio of ongoing and planned projects. Giving Green believes that additional climate donations are likely to be most impactful when directed to our top nonprofits. For a number of reasons , we may choose to recommend grants to other organizations for work that we believe is at least as impactful as grants to our top recommendations. We are highlighting this grant to offer transparency to donors to the Giving Green Fund as well as to provide a resource for donors who are particularly interested in this impact strategy. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Good Energy Collective // BACK Overview The Giving Green Fund plans to award a grant to Good Energy Collective to support its work on nuclear policy advocacy. We are supporting an ecosystem of nonprofits working on policies to support advanced nuclear innovation in the US , given that the US is important for designing and demonstrating these technologies before they are exported elsewhere. Good Energy falls within our philanthropic strategy of supporting nuclear power as a way to diversify energy portfolios. Please see Giving Green's deep dive report on nuclear power for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties. Last updated: October 2024 What is Good Energy Collective? Good Energy Collective is a progressive policy research organization reimagining nuclear energy’s role in the climate crisis. Specifically, it supports the deployment of advanced nuclear reactors – which are designed to be lower cost to build and more versatile than traditional reactors and have advanced safety features – as part of an equitable clean energy transition. It does this in part by engaging with local leaders and communities to discuss the potential of advanced nuclear. It was founded in 2020. What are we funding at Good Energy, and how could it help reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Nuclear power can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by replacing or avoiding carbon-emitting energy sources. It can work alongside renewable energy by providing a steady electricity supply, regardless of the season or environmental conditions. The future of advanced nuclear reactors depends on technological progress and political conditions. Good Energy’s primary activities are community engagement and policy research. It aims to build support in potential nuclear host communities by collaborating with environmental justice organizations, community-based organizations, and other nonprofits. At the federal level, its work includes championing consent-based siting research for nuclear waste facilities. Their team’s efforts are aimed at understanding how to responsibly engage communities on siting nuclear waste facilities, such that they are fully informed, engaged, and supportive before siting happens. Its state-level work is mainly focused on coal repowering and working with local leaders to help them understand nuclear’s potential for their communities. We think Good Energy can build bottom-up support for nuclear energy and address barriers to deployment inside and outside the US. Good Energy would use additional funding to support its work on state-level engagement. Continued support also enables Good Energy to hire staff, sustain community engagement, and participate in relevant workshops. Why do we think Good Energy will use this funding well? We believe Good Energy’s work on maintaining nuclear power’s social license to operate fills a neglected niche in increasing advanced nuclear reactor deployment. We believe Good Energy has substantial growth potential and that, with increased funds, it could become more effective by scaling its community engagement and policy efforts. For more on the difference between the grantees of the Giving Green Fund and our Top Nonprofits, please see this blog post on the Giving Green Fund. This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Giving Green's Research Process // BACK Giving Green's Research Overview This report was lightly updated in October 2024, and previously updated in July 2023. Giving Green’s Research Overview Executive Summary Purpose of This Overview High-level Process Evidence Sources Data Literature External input Step 1: Identify Impact Strategies Step 2: Assess Impact Strategies Scale: How big a problem is it? Feasibility: How hard is the problem to address? Funding need: How much would more donations help? Shallow dives and deep dives Theory of change Cost-effectiveness analysis Step 3: Longlist Organizations Step 4: Evaluate Funding Opportunity Step 5: Publish Recommendations Recurring Step: Reassess Existing Recommendations Key Uncertainties Executive Summary This page is an overview of Giving Green’s current research process, which we expect to continue to update over time. We hope this increased transparency helps donors make more informed decisions, and also opens us up to additional scrutiny to improve our work. This page may be especially useful for those interested in digging into the details of our work. If you have any questions or feedback, we invite you to contact us . High-level process Giving Green’s mission is to improve human & ecological well-being by mitigating climate change. Our theory of change involves directing more funding to our recommended high-impact climate strategies to reduce climate change. We follow a five-step research process: identify impact strategies, assess impact strategies, longlist potential organizations, evaluate specific funding opportunities, and publish recommendations. Evidence sources We rely on three broad types of evidence: data (e.g., emissions, philanthropic funding), literature (e.g., academic journals, industry reports), and external input (e.g., climate researchers, policymakers). The type of evidence we use, as well as how we use it, depends on its availability and the research stage. Step 1: Identify impact strategies As a first step, we want to answer the question: What are potentially promising impact strategies? Regardless of geography or approach, we look for very rough indications that a strategy may be a promising fit for Giving Green (e.g. expected high impact of the marginal dollar). The output of this step is additions to our research prioritization dashboard. Step 2: Assess impact strategies At this stage, we move from identification to evaluation. We seek to answer the question: What is the scale, feasibility, and funding need of an impact strategy? For scale, we want to know how much a specific problem is contributing to climate change, or how much an impact strategy could reduce it. For feasibility, we want to determine an impact strategy’s likelihood of achieving success given additional philanthropy finding. And for funding need, we want to understand (a) whether climate philanthropy funding opportunities exist and (b) how much an impact strategy is constrained by philanthropic funding. At this early stage in our analysis, we use a combination of metrics and heuristics to qualitatively rank these criteria as low, medium, or high, and use these rankings to decide which impact strategies to prioritize for additional research. Shallow dives and deep dives We subsequently evaluate prioritized impact strategies at two depths: shallow dives and deep dives. These dives move beyond qualitative rankings, and also consider major co-benefits and adverse effects. At this stage in our analysis, we also introduce two analytical tools: theories of change and cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs). Theories of change to help us map out and assess an impact strategy’s pathway. We use CEAs as an input into our comparison of the cost-effectiveness of different strategies and organizations. Depending on the certainty of our inputs, we may use CEAs to identify or confirm important parameters, assess whether it is plausible that a donation could be highly cost-effective, and/or estimate the actual cost-effectiveness of a strategy or organization. Step 3: Longlist organizations As we focus in our analysis on a specific impact strategy, we seek to answer the question: Are there promising organizations that may have funding needs? We longlist organizations to map out the universe of funding opportunities for a given impact strategy, and roughly assess organizations based on their focus (how much it aligns with a strategy), effectiveness (whether an organization could be highly effective), and size (operational scale and potential funding need) Step 4: Evaluate funding opportunity At this stage, we seek to answer the question: Does an organization have a cost-effective theory of change with specific funding needs? For a given impact strategy, we generally evaluate three to five organizations using the same shallow and deep dive formats outlined above. After completing a deep dive, we decide whether an organization should receive a top recommendation status. Step 5: Publish recommendations At this final stage, we publish summaries of our deep dives that seek to answer the question: Why is this likely to be among the most cost-effective funding opportunities? Recurring step: Reassess existing recommendations As an ongoing step, we update our existing recommendations annually. We seek to answer the question: has anything changed about an organization or its context that would cause us to longer list it as a top recommendation? We assess implications for an organization’s scale, feasibility, and funding need, and maintain or remove our recommendation, accordingly. Key uncertainties Our research process has evolved over time, and we continue to have uncertainties about our approach. These include: whether and how we should prioritize a diversity of recommendations, how to best define and estimate changes in well-being due to climate change, an appropriate balance of research breadth versus depth, how to avoid false precision, and how to balance transparency with other considerations. Purpose of This Overview This page is an overview of our current research process, which we expect to continue to update over time. We hope this increased transparency helps donors make more informed decisions, and also opens us up to additional scrutiny to improve our work. This page may be especially useful for those interested in digging into the details of our work. This page provides a high-level overview of our current (2023) research process. Our research has continued to evolve over time, from its initial exclusive focus on carbon offsets (see Our Mistakes ) to our increased focus on reasoning transparency in 2022 . Not only does this page reflect our latest thinking, but it also represents a new level of transparency (one of our organizational values ) to help supporters understand our overall research-to-recommendation pipeline. We hope this overview accomplishes a few goals: Helps donors make more informed decisions about whether to trust Giving Green’s recommendations, which could increase donations directed by Giving Green. Helps donors in their broader (non-specific to Giving Green) climate philanthropy decisions, which could increase the cost-effectiveness of general climate philanthropy efforts. Opens us up to additional scrutiny of our research methodology, which could allow us to increase the quality and usefulness of our work. Encourages increased transparency among the broader climate philanthropy community, to allow us to collaborate and learn more from each other. This page is meant for those interested in digging into the details of our overall process, or for those curious to learn more about a specific aspect of our methodology (e.g., how we use external input ). This page is not meant to be an exhaustive explanation of our research, nor is it meant to set in stone an unchanging process. We expect to intentionally review our process on an annual basis, but generally consider this to be a live document that we may continually update. If you have any questions or feedback, we invite you to contact us . High-level Process Giving Green’s mission is to improve human & ecological well-being by mitigating climate change. To accomplish this goal, we prioritize high-impact research, conduct rigorous evaluations, and make recommendations for cost-effective climate funding opportunities [1] . Our theory of change (Figure 1) involves combining our recommendations with communication, leading to increased funding for high-impact climate strategies, lowered warming, and eventually improved human & ecological well-being. Figure 1. Giving Green's organizational theory of change At a high level, we follow a five-step research process (Figure 2): we identify impact strategies, assess impact strategies, longlist potential organizations, evaluate specific funding opportunities, and publish recommendations [2] . We explore each step in more detail below. Figure 2. Giving Green research process While this process primarily applies to how we identify our overall top recommendations , we use a similar approach for our other workstreams, such as our business recommendations and Australia recommendations . In these instances, we might introduce constraints on the landscape of opportunities (e.g., Australia-specific organizations) or approaches (e.g., business strategy decisions instead of philanthropically-funded interventions) [3] . For all our workstreams, we also strive to have a diversity of highly cost-effective recommendations that account for donor/business preferences. Though we think our target audiences are generally interested in high-impact philanthropy, we do not think their donation decisions are always uniquely driven by cost-effectiveness. We also believe there is considerable uncertainty about what are the “best” philanthropic strategies. Therefore, we think it’s important to have at least some variety in the strategies and sectors of our recommendation, even if we were to think that one strategy may be more cost-effective than others. This is in line with our organizational value of humility . Overall, we believe that even if we make some recommendations that may not be as cost-effective as others, we think this still maximizes our overall impact (see Key uncertainties). While our research process is theoretically stepwise, it is not always linear. For example, we may rule out an impact strategy if we are unsure whether any existing organizations implement this approach. For this reason, we might attempt to identify organizations working on a particular impact strategy before deeply assessing the approach. Since the specifics of our analyses also depend on varying factors such as available evidence and the nuances of individual impact strategies, this overview is necessarily limited in its depth and comprehensiveness. For details on our specific research process for different impact strategies, we invite you to review our research reports . Evidence Sources In general, we rely on three broad types of evidence to inform our research process: data, literature, and external input. Data Data types and sources vary substantially by research project, but there are generally three bodies of data we almost always use: emissions, progress, and funding. Some of the largest and most reliable data we use relates to past and current emissions. For example, we often use emissions by sector as a quick input into our assessment of scale. To inform our assessment of broader climate progress and feasibility, we reference data on climate targets, progress, and policies, e.g. Climate Action Tracker [4] . Since we are ultimately interested in optimal resource allocation across climate impact strategies, we also review data on public, private, and philanthropic spending. [5] Literature Literature reviews are a part of all our research projects, and can include both academic and non-academic evidence. When available and relevant, we use academic journal articles as a relatively important input into our research process. We rely on academic articles because they are often (but certainly not always) written by experts with deep knowledge, thoughtfully peer-reviewed as part of the publication process, and accompanied by critiques and citations that help us efficiently assess its quality. Academic articles might provide specific analysis of an impact strategy, or might also provide us with useful framing for assessing broader opportunities (e.g., Malhotra and Schmidt 2020 assesses low-carbon innovation attributes) [6] . However, academic articles are not immune to bias, and are also often less available for especially new impact strategies. Non-academic literature, such as reports, new articles, blogs, or even tweets, can be especially useful for directly applicable analysis and evidence. These literature can complement academic evidence in a few ways: broader assessments across impact strategies (e.g., Halstead 2022 ’s compilation of evidence across scientific fields), faster publication timelines (e.g., a feasibility study on novel geothermal microdistricting technology), more private sector perspectives (e.g., a McKinsey assessment of cultivated meat), and generally stronger or more uncertain statements that might be useful to consider (e.g., a Carbon Brief summary of the IPCC’s sixth assessment cycle). However, non-academic literature may also be biased, less broadly accepted/vetted, and/or less deeply researched. External input As a small team of climate researchers, we rely heavily on the expertise of others. We speak with other climate researchers, climate philanthropists, private sector representatives, policymakers, government employees, and members of civil society to guide and critique our research. As part of our commitment to our value of humility , we are especially focused on ensuring we receive a diversity of feedback, and seek to proactively engage with stakeholders who may have different or contrary views to our own. We intentionally seek to have at least one conversation with someone who we believe may disagree with our assessment, and generally sort potential contacts by affiliation (e.g., private sector), background (e.g., economist), geographic focus (e.g., US), and potential biases (e.g., topic-focused specialist) to assess external input diversity. As with our other research tools, how we use expert input largely depends on the research stage and question. In earlier-stage research prioritization, we consult with external stakeholders to gather high-level perspectives on the state of climate progress, as well as to solicit feedback on Giving Green’s overall strategy. Once our research advances to organization-specific evaluations, we primarily use external stakeholders to (a) ensure we have a comprehensive view of the ecosystem of organizations working in a space and (b) assess an organization’s effectiveness. We also have three more formal review steps. At important milestones in our overall research process (e.g., tentative recommendation), we inform some or all of our advisors and solicit general feedback. For organizations we are considering recommending, we ask them for reference checks. However, due to potential selection and response bias, we primarily use these references to learn more about specific organizational activities. And finally, for near-final drafts of especially important and/or uncertain research, we solicit a detailed review by an external researcher with expertise in the area of investigation. We think there is more progress we could make on increasing the rigor of our external input process, and plan to consider improvement opportunities in 2023 (see Future plans). Step 1: Identify Impact Strategies Our first step is to create a continually-evolving list of all philanthropic strategies that are potentially promising for future research. At first pass, we are interested in all impact strategies, regardless of geography or approach. [7] Since there are many ways to look at the same challenges or opportunities, we don’t think it’s possible to ever create a complete list of all impact strategies. For example, “avoiding deforestation” could mean saving trees, but it could also mean reducing the need for livestock grazing land. For this reason, we bring our own framing into our analysis and consider our assessment to be an ongoing process, rather than a one-time exercise to create a seemingly completely exhaustive list. At this stage, we look for very rough indications that an impact strategy may be a promising fit for Giving Green. For example, is there a sector that is a large and/or growing greenhouse gas emissions source, but receives a relatively small share of philanthropic funding (e.g., industry)? [8] If the answer is yes, that could suggest there is an opportunity for impact. [9] Or is there a nascent mitigation technology that seems stuck in a “ valley of death ” for which philanthropic funding might help? [10] The main output to this step is additions to our research prioritization dashboard. View the full dashboard as a Google Sheet here . Figure 3. A preview of our research prioritization dashboard as of July 2023 Example: From speaking with stakeholders in the climate philanthropy community, we believed efforts to decarbonize industry emissions might be relatively underfunded by philanthropy due to perceptions of low feasibility. We added this impact strategy to our dashboard to assess funding need, as well as whether feasibility might be higher than generally expected. Step 2: Assess Impact Strategies At this stage, we move from identification to evaluation. We seek to answer the question: What is the scale, feasibility, and funding need of an impact strategy? We think this step is often the most important, since it gives us adequate granularity to more confidently compare the impact potential of one strategy over another. Subsequent steps of identifying specific organizations and funding opportunities are also essential, but may be relatively less important than generally prioritizing one impact strategy over another. With so many different strategies to investigate, we run the risk of conducting overly shallow dives on many topics and accidentally deprioritizing an impactful opportunity. On the other hand, we also risk conducting overly deep dives on just a few topics, limiting our capacity to investigate other impactful opportunities. To balance these risks, we use three broad criteria to assess the promisingness of an approach: scale (how big a problem is it?), feasibility (how hard is it to address?), and funding need (how much would more donations help?). [11] For each of these indicators, we initially use a combination of metrics and heuristics to assign low/medium/high ratings for these indicators (see research prioritization dashboard ). We then use these ratings to prioritize impact strategies for additional research, which no longer relies on these qualitative rankings. See below for additional high-level commentary on each indicator. Scale: How big a problem is it? What do we want to know? At a high level, we want to determine how much a specific problem is contributing to climate change, or how much an impact strategy could reduce it. As a rough proxy for this, we estimate how much an approach could theoretically avoid greenhouse gas emissions, remove atmospheric greenhouse gasses, and/or reduce radiative forcing. Though these are intermediate effects, we use them because they are relatively easy to measure and communicate. However, we also use heuristics (see below) to prioritize strategies we think are especially likely to improve well-being, and sometimes consider ways to estimate well-being more directly. Why does scale matter? All else equal, the bigger the scale, the more we want to look into it. We can also think about scale as a hedge on the other indicators. If feasibility or funding need (see below) turn out to be lower-than-expected, bigger scale is a way to still ensure high impact relative to a smaller-scale problem with similar feasibility and funding need. How do we assess scale? Metrics: We estimate the percentage of future expected greenhouse gas emissions that could be avoided or removed by a certain strategy, or how much it would generally reduce radiative forcing through 2100. [12] Heuristics: Is this problem expected to grow or shrink? Is this problem concentrated in a country or region where this problem is generally expected to grow or shrink? Do we expect this opportunity to scale rapidly enough to significantly affect climate change within the next 75 years? Is this problem or opportunity relevant across a wide range of climate scenarios, including scenarios with relatively high suffering (roughly defined as > 4°C)? [13] How do we use our assessment to decide whether to prioritize further research? Scale matters, but we don’t think bigger is always better. For example, we think some strategies and sectors with high scale already receive substantial funding and may benefit less from a Giving Green recommendation compared to other causes we could fund. Therefore, we think scale is primarily useful for deprioritizing research into topics that seem less promising because they are not a big or likely problem or opportunity. Based on the metrics and heuristics above, we assign a simple low/medium/high qualitative ranking. [14] For strategies with a low rating, we only prioritize further research if we are especially optimistic about feasibility and funding need. What are key uncertainties or limitations to this approach? We are especially uncertain as to the value to place on reduced climate change over different time periods (see Key uncertainties). [15] Example: We estimated that industry accounts for around 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions. [16] “Industry” is a broad term that may not be fully targeted by some impact strategies. Nevertheless, we ranked its scale as high, since we believe impact strategies in this area could generally affect 5% or more of future expected greenhouse gas emissions through 2100. Some topics are also cross-cutting (e.g., clean energy) or have a highly uncertain future (e.g., specific carbon removal technologies). Feasibility: How hard is the problem to address? What do we want to know? At a high level, we want to determine an impact strategy’s likelihood of achieving scale relative to the counterfactual. Feasibility assesses how much a funding opportunity can actually contribute to solving a problem. Why does feasibility matter? Focusing resources on a problem is not useful unless it is solvable. Feasibility takes our scale assessment and fact-checks it based on practical real-life constraints. All else equal, we prioritize opportunities where there is a clear place for philanthropy to add to a strategy’s success, in order to increase the odds that aspirational impact becomes a reality. How do we assess feasibility? Metrics: We think it is unlikely we can estimate actual likelihood of success with much certainty, and therefore rely primarily on heuristics for this assessment. Heuristics: In general, how strong is the theory of change? Are there important and weak parts of the theory of change that suggest low feasibility? In general, how complicated or simple is the impact strategy? Are there organizations working on this, past examples of success, promising track records, or other pieces of evidence that suggest high feasibility? For topics without substantial precedent, is there any forward-looking or theoretical analysis that makes a strong case for future success? Does philanthropy have an important role to play in this strategy, or is it more easily supported by government or private sector stakeholders? How do we use our assessment to decide whether to prioritize further research? Based heuristics above, we assign a low/medium/high qualitative ranking. [17] For strategies with a low rating, we only prioritize further research if we are especially optimistic about scale and funding need. What are key uncertainties or limitations to this approach? As part of our initial assessment, we think this is the indicator we are most likely to get wrong, since feasibility assessments often require a deep understanding of specific nuances. If we misunderstand these nuances, we think there is a relatively high risk of creating false negatives. [18] The main way we try to mitigate this risk is by soliciting external input. In later stages, we also develop a more formal theory of change (see Theory of change) that allows us to more methodically estimate feasibility. Example: We struggled to easily and confidently the feasibility of decarbonizing heavy industry. This was partially due to highly varying impact strategies, ranging from corporate pressure campaigns to tweaking international trade regulation. [19] However, we also heard varying opinions from reports we read and key stakeholders we spoke with. On one hand, economic incentives seem to give credence to the “hard-to-decarbonize industry” nickname. [20] On the other hand, some specific impact strategies we assessed seemed highly plausible. At this early stage in our analysis, we classified this overall strategy as having medium feasibility. Funding need: How much would more donations help? What do we want to know? At a high level, we want to understand (a) whether climate philanthropy funding opportunities exist and (b) how much an impact strategy is constrained by philanthropic funding. Why does funding need matter? There are thousands of non-profit organizations with highly effective approaches. However, some of these approaches are relatively well-established and well-funded, and additional donations may be unlikely to have a major effect on future impact. On the other hand, there are also highly effective (or highly promising) impact opportunities that are not well-funded, have large growth potential, and/or could engage in higher-risk activities with more funding certainty. All else equal, we want to prioritize approaches with relatively higher funding needs. How do we assess funding need? Metric(s): Conditional on available data, we assess current philanthropic, private sector, and public sector funding to roughly understand (a) which source(s) provide funding and (b) how these funding amounts vary in size. For broader impact strategies (e.g., clean energy), we also estimate its percentage of philanthropic funding to generally understand whether it has been a major focus of philanthropic funding. [21] We also consider year-over-year changes in philanthropic spending to assess whether funding has grown or shrunk over time. Heuristics: Is there a clear role or gap that climate philanthropy is well-placed to fill? Are there specific phases of an impact strategy (e.g., RD&D) that may benefit from philanthropic funding? [22] Is this a low-interest idea that might signal funding need? [23] On the other hand, are there governments, corporations, donors, and/or organizations already allocating substantial money/resources to this? How is philanthropic funding distributed among different geographies? [24] How do we use our assessment to decide whether to prioritize further research? If we cannot identify any organizations working on an impact strategy, we deprioritize further research. (In the future we may look to help seed new organizations for promising strategies that have no one working on them.) For those remaining, we assign a qualitative low/medium/high ranking based on the metrics and heuristics above. [25] In particular, we examine relatively well-funded impact strategies to consider whether they may have relatively lower funding needs. For any topic for which we believe the funding need is low, we deprioritize further research. What are key uncertainties or limitations to this approach? Trying to determine funding need based on funding trends can be difficult and counterintuitive. For example, ClimateWorks notes that carbon removal efforts received a “sizable” funding increase in 2021. [26] This could imply that funding need is now lower since there is more philanthropic funding. However, increased philanthropic funding could also indicate even higher funding need, perhaps because philanthropic efforts play a complementary role to increased US government support for carbon removal. [27] Assessing broader funding trends can also hide niche funding opportunities with high funding needs. For example, it is our general impression that US policy advocacy work has relatively low funding need. In 2022, we nonetheless recommended Evergreen Collaborative in part because of the timely and specific funding opportunity to assist specific states to take better advantage of Inflation Reduction Act funding. [28] Because of this, we rely more heavily on heuristics than metrics, and generally have a high bar for deprioritizing impact strategies based on funding need. Example: We used ClimateWorks data to assess that industry efforts received a relatively small amount (~3%) of climate philanthropy funding. [29] However, there were also some signs that well-funded climate philanthropists (e.g., Jeff Bezos) may be ramping up funding for this impact strategy, which might reduce overall funding need. [30] In tandem with increasing focus and funding from the climate philanthropy community, we also became aware of some new early-stage funding opportunities that might have high funding need. [31] We also assessed the degree to which private sector incentives and spending might render philanthropic funding moot, but generally did not find these arguments to be overly compelling. Given all these considerations, we ranked industry decarbonization as having medium funding need. Shallow dives and deep dives For impact strategies we prioritize based on the criteria above, we subsequently evaluate them at two depths: shallow dives and deep dives. [32] These dives continue to evaluate opportunities based on scale, feasibility, and funding need, but move beyond the qualitative low/medium/high ranking we use to make early-stage research prioritizations. For example, instead of assessing general funding need, we attempt to determine how a marginal donation would actually be used, as well as what would happen in the absence of that donation. Additionally, we consider major co-benefits and adverse effects that may affect our prioritization decisionmaking. [33] We conduct many shallow dives on different impact strategies and, for the subset we continue to prioritize, deep dives to reassess in substantially more detail. While both focus on the same fundamental criteria, we start with a quicker analysis and only dig deeper if we think a strategy has a high probability of leading to a top recommendation. [34] At this stage of our analysis, we also formally introduce two analytical tools to help guide our decision-making: theories of change and cost-effectiveness analyses. Theory of change We use theories of change to help us map out and assess an impact strategy’s pathway to reducing suffering due to climate change. For a given theory of change, we focus especially on assumptions that are important for a theory of change to become reality. For each assumption, we rank whether we have low, medium, or high certainty in our assessment. Theories of change may not always be amenable to easy measurement or quantification, or supported by a robust evidence base. All else equal, we think strategies that have lengthier and/or less certain theories of change are less likely to be successfully implemented, since there are more and/or larger opportunities for an important node or link to fail. Cost-effectiveness analysis We use cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs) as an input into our comparison of the cost-effectiveness of different strategies and organizations. CEAs often go hand-in-hand with theories of change, as we often consider CEAs to be a “quantified theory of change.” However, many of the opportunities we view as most promising also have highly uncertain inputs. [35] Because of this, our CEAs often primarily serve as a way to (a) identify or confirm especially important parameters that most directly determine how much a donation might reduce climate change and (b) assess whether it is plausible that a donation could be highly cost-effective. [36] For example, our decarbonizing heavy industry CEA ( explanation , model ) estimates the cost-effectiveness of advocacy efforts to secure a federal US government commitment to switch to lower-carbon cement procurement and its potential subsequent effects on global cement. Since this CEA includes highly subjective guess parameters, its estimates are highly uncertain and should not be taken literally. Instead, it helped us think through what parameters and assumptions were necessary in order for nonprofit advocacy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and whether these efforts plausibly have high cost-effectiveness. We also sometimes use CEAs to compare roughly similar climate impact strategies to determine which to prioritize. By constructing CEAs for each strategy, we can identify (a) which parameters vary and (b) whether one opportunity appears substantially more cost-effective than the other. Though we may have low confidence in our specific cost-effectiveness estimates, we may have high confidence in our assessment of the relative cost-effectiveness of one opportunity over another, and prioritize accordingly. For instance, we found this approach useful when comparing advocacy organizations in the US in the lead-up to climate legislation in 2022. [37] Example: As we initially refined our investigation, we roughly mapped out nine different strategies to decarbonize heavy industry. [38] Though there are many different industry types and decarbonization impact strategies, our general impression was that heavy industry can be decarbonized if there is (1) adequate demand for low-carbon products, (2) a supportive regulatory framework, and (3) transition assistance that facilitates a switch to low-carbon production. To further refine our thinking, we built a simple theory of change and constructed a CEA as a plausibility check of this strategy’s cost-effectiveness. [39] Step 3: Longlist Organizations Once we have identified a promising impact strategy, our investigation turns practical. We longlist organizations to map out the existing universe of funding opportunities under a given impact strategy. The specific criteria we use to add and roughly evaluate organizations varies based on what we are assessing. At this point, they are largely related to the organization’s focus. For example, we examine how closely the organization’s work aligns with the previously identified impact strategy. In some cases, an organization’s mission and operations are highly aligned with a strategy. In other cases, an organization may only be partially focused on the identified strategy, or may have a variation on the strategy we have identified. At this stage, we also mark which organizations on our long list can both accept small-dollar donations and be legally recommended by Giving Green. [40] Though it is not in line with our value of transparency, we do not publish organization longlists. We seek to be positive and collaborative members of the climate philanthropy community, and do not believe that we would substantially increase our impact by listing organizations that do not receive a top recommendation status. See Key Uncertainties for more. Example: Based primarily on desk research and external input, we developed an initial longlist of 17 organizations focused exclusively or partially on decarbonizing heavy industry. [41] Of these, we prioritized four organizations for additional investigation. [42] Step 4: Evaluate Funding Opportunities From our longlist, we select a subset of organizations for which to evaluate specific funding opportunities. Though we do not think it is useful to have a pre-specified number of opportunities we assess for a given impact strategy, we generally evaluate (at most) three to five organizations. This allows us to balance research efficiency with the desire to make comparison-based assessments within a given impact strategy. For these organizations, we follow the same shallow dive and deep dive format and analysis outlined above. We assess an organization’s theory of change to determine whether we believe it is effective in implementing a broader climate impact strategy. For example, we may believe that an organization is not well-placed to successfully advocate to industrial corporations to decarbonize, but that it will likely be effective in its advocacy to governments to procure low-carbon industrial goods. While it may fail via one theory of change pathway, its success via another suggests we may still have some confidence in its overall theory of change to decarbonize industry. In some instances, there may be organization-specific details that also allow us to construct an organization-specific CEA. For example, there may be past instances of an organization’s specific policy advocacy efforts for which we have some cost data and effect evidence. In these cases, we may attempt to construct organization-specific CEAs, though this depends on the degree to which we believe past precedent should inform our understanding of future cost-effectiveness. In cases for which this is not possible, we rely on other assessment tools, which can sometimes include higher-level CEAs of impact strategies. As noted above, we think this stage of our analysis may be less important for two reasons: (1) the majority of our impact comes from selecting highly cost-effective impact strategies and (2) it is relatively more difficult to assess specific organizations’ effectiveness. When assessing impact strategies, there may be journal articles on the topic, experts that have devoted years of thought to the question, and/or robust cost comparison data. While it is almost certainly the case that specific funding opportunities vary in cost-effectiveness, we generally think the differences between shortlisted organizations may often be relatively small and/or difficult to assess compared to differences in impact strategies’ cost-effectiveness. This is because shortlisted organizations may be relatively similar in approach, as well as the fact that our final recommendation decisions often rely on more qualitative measures that do not always enable high-confidence quantitative comparisons (e.g., key informant interviews assessing leadership effectiveness). After completing a deep dive, we decide whether an organization should receive a top recommendation status. Example: From our shortlist of four organizations focused on industry decarbonization, we removed one organization due to lack of communication response. [43] For the remaining three, we conducted shallow dives. We assessed that two of these organizations had relatively low funding need, and one of these organization’s specific impact strategies may also have had low effectiveness. [44] This caused us to conclude that the cost-effectiveness of a marginal donation to either of these organizations would likely not be within the range we would consider for a top recommendation. [45] Our initial shallow dive of Industrious Lab suggested that it could be highly promising, and our deep dive analysis confirmed our prior thinking. Our deep dive helped us also identify some key uncertainties in our assessment. Ultimately, we decided to select Industrious Labs as a top recommendation. Step 5: Publish Recommendations At this final stage, we publish summaries of our deep dives that seek to answer the question: Why is this likely to be among the most cost-effective funding opportunities? Recommendations do not contain additional information beyond what we’ve included in our funding opportunity deep dives. Instead, they serve as summaries that explain the fundamental reasons why we believe a specific funding opportunity is highly cost-effective, and why we are especially excited to classify it as a top recommendation. Example: We published our Industrious Labs recommendation in November 2022. Recurring Step: Reassess Existing Recommendations As an ongoing step, we update our existing recommendations annually. We seek to answer the question: has anything changed about an organization or its context that would cause us to longer list it as a top recommendation? We assess implications for an organization’s scale, feasibility, and funding need, and maintain or remove our recommendation, accordingly. We update our list of recommended nonprofits annually. As a heuristic, more recent recommendations receive a light-touch update whereas older recommendations (two or more years since our last major update) receive more in-depth updates. In our reassessments, we explore what’s changed about the organization and its impact strategy context since our last review, and we consider perspectives and resources we may have overlooked. Questions we consider include: Have there been organizational or contextual changes that cause us to be less (or more) confident of an organization’s theory of change? How effectively has the organization used Giving Green-directed funds so far? With this information, how well do we think the organization can use Giving Green-directed funds in the future? Does it seem harder or easier for this impact strategy to attract funding without a Giving Green recommendation? We decide whether to maintain a recommendation based on our updated assessments of the organization’s scale, feasibility, and funding need. Example: We have not yet reassessed our investigations of Industrious Labs or the general impact strategy of decarbonizing heavy industry. Since Industrious Labs is a relatively young and fast-growing organization, we expect our reassessment to primarily focus on funding need and evidence of effectiveness. For decarbonizing heavy industry, in general, we plan to assess whether philanthropic or government funding for this strategy has increased substantially, which may suggest lower funding need than previously. Key Uncertainties Our research process has evolved over time, and we continue to have uncertainties about our approach. These include: whether and how we should prioritize a diversity of recommendations, how to best define and estimate suffering due to climate change, an appropriate balance of research breadth versus depth, how to avoid false precision, and how to balance transparency with other considerations. Our research process has evolved over time, and we expect to continue to make changes as we grow and mature in our analytical approach. We have made some mistakes , and continue to have uncertainties about our current process. See below for some of our key uncertainties. Diversity of recommendations Our theory of change accounts for the preferences of our target audiences, which means that the diversity and number of our research and recommendations are affected by our target audiences. For example, part of our motivation for prioritizing research into deforestation was due to our impression that forests attract a relatively large amount of philanthropic funding. [46] If our target audience has strongly held preferences for donating to forest-based mitigation efforts, it could be the case that a recommendation linked to reducing deforestation might ultimately influence more funds and have more impact than a lower-preference recommendation, even if the lower-preference recommendation is technically more cost-effective. [47] It may also be the case that having high-interest research/recommendations provides an entry-point to crowd in additional funding to initially lower-interest recommendations. [48] Finally, we also think that fewer recommendations may make sense from a behavioral perspective, in order to reduce analysis paralysis that could cause would-be donors to not give. Since our own reasoning is based primarily on theory and qualitative target audience feedback, we may conduct more research on this in the future to inform our understanding. [49] We may also consider ways in which our Giving Green fund, formally launched in 2023, allows us to adopt new funding channels (e.g., direct grantmaking, requests for proposals, new organization seed funding, etc.). Defining and estimating suffering due to climate change Our mission is to improve human & ecological well-being by mitigating climate change. However, this is difficult to define and analyze, so we often use atmospheric greenhouse gas levels or radiative forcing over different time periods as a rough proxy. We also use heuristics to prioritize mitigation efforts that we think will be relevant in high-suffering scenarios. We think this is an imperfect process, and is especially relevant when comparing funding opportunities for (a) near-term climate pollutants (e.g., methane) versus (longer-lived) CO2, (b) short permanence vs long permanence interventions (e.g., enhanced soil carbon management versus Climeworks direct air capture ), and (c) near-term reductions versus future reductions (e.g., immediate carbon removal versus policy advocacy for nuclear fusion research). [50] This uncertainty varies in importance across our research, so we plan to continue to consider ways to improve and refine this on a case-by-case basis. We may also spend more time generally trying to improve our estimate of suffering or well-being due to climate change, but do not expect this to be a major research focus for 2023. Balancing research breadth versus depth We face an extraordinarily broad field of potential opportunities to investigate. At each stage of our research process, we must balance breadth and depth in an effort to assess a wide array of opportunities with a high degree of rigor. We are uncertain whether we are striking the right balance, and plan to continue assessing this based on our research capacity and the opportunity landscape. Avoiding false precision Truth-seeking and transparency are two of our organizational values that drive us to have high reasoning transparency in all our work. However, we have historically struggled with how to (a) share the full depth of reasoning that goes into our research process and (b) communicate the degree of confidence we place in various statements and tools. For example, our CEAs are highly quantitative tools. For some of our assessments, we ultimately decide to not place much weight or confidence in them, and state as much. [51] We think this may still be confusing for some readers, and could be interpreted as false precision. For all of our research, and especially for highly quantitative analytical techniques such as CEAs, we are uncertain how to best practice high reasoning transparency while avoiding false precision. We plan to continue to experiment with different techniques to avoid false precision. [52] Balancing transparency with other considerations As a heuristic and value , we aim to be highly transparent in all our work. However, we think there are three reasons we are not fully transparent: confidentiality, research capacity, and positive collaboration: Confidentiality: As part of our research process, we sometimes have the opportunity to receive confidential data or speak with stakeholders who request off-the-record conversations. In these instances, our first priority is to respect confidentiality. While we wish we were always in a position to share any information we receive, we think this tradeoff is probably worth it. We have found confidential information to be quite useful, as it can provide back-end direction and insight that directly informs our research and reasoning. Research capacity: We are a small team with limited capacity to conduct a large amount of research. In its early stages, our research can be tentative, confusing, or just plain wrong. To make this research high-enough quality to make it easily and accurately interpretable would require substantial time that we think is better spent on decision-relevant research. However, we also want to be transparent about our overall process. To balance this, we publish a high-level research prioritization dashboard , (even if we do not always publish the extent of our prioritization reasoning), as well as shallow or deep dives on impact strategies we ultimately decide to not prioritize. Positive collaboration: As mentioned below, we do not publish a list of organizations we have assessed and decided to not classify as a top recommendation. We do this to balance transparency with two of our other values : collaboration and humility. We seek to be positive members of the climate philanthropy community, and believe that making the case for top recommendations is more impactful and more in line with our values than highlighting organizations that, though they may be quite effective, do not ultimately receive a top recommendation status. We are unsure whether we have always made appropriate transparency tradeoff decisions. Though increased research capacity would allow us to practice higher transparency, we think we will continue to balance concerns of confidentiality and positive collaboration. Endnotes [1] For more on our organizational strategy and processes, see How Giving Green Works | Our Mission . We loosely define “cost-effective” in terms of high scale, feasibility, and funding need (see below). We more formally define “cost-effective” as how much an additional dollar in philanthropic funding could avoid greenhouse gas emissions, remove atmospheric greenhouse gases, and/or reduce an equivalent amount of radiative forcing. For example, as a benchmark for our top recommendations, we consider an opportunity if its estimated cost-effectiveness is plausibly within an order of magnitude of $1/tCO2e avoided or removed (i.e., less than $10/tCO2e). See Key uncertainties for additional commentary on this proxy estimate and benchmark. [2] For more on our research, see Climate change mitigation strategies research | Giving Green . For recommendations, see Give to high-impact climate nonprofits | Giving Green . [3] For more on our Australia research process, see Research Process and Prioritization | Giving Green . For recommendations, see Australian Climate Policy, Our recommended organization | Giving Green . For our business strategy decisions, see How to Think Beyond Net Zero | Giving Green . [4] Though we review climate targets and policies to roughly assess progress, we don’t necessarily place value on whether or not an impact strategy is “on track” or not according to a specific target. This is because we believe many targets are developed to serve as useful political and aspirational tools and goals. [5] For example, we review Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 as one input into our assessment of philanthropic spending. [6] “We also draw on complexity theory, evolutionary economics, and cybernetic theory to develop a technology typology that helps explain systematic differences in technologies’ experience rates by distinguishing between technologies on the basis of (1) their design complexity and (2) the extent to which they need to be customized.” Malhotra and Schmidt 2020 . [7] We think that limiting our initial universe of options by geography or approach might exclude highly cost-effective impact strategies for arbitrary reasons. However, at later stages we may use these sorts of criteria to help us prioritize certain research opportunities over others. We also consider the comparative advantages of our staff to efficiently and effectively conduct research. For example, since the common language among our staff is English, we may find it difficult to assess opportunities in certain geographies. [8] We roughly estimate that industry accounts for 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions and receives around 3% of climate philanthropic funding from foundations. Industry greenhouse gas emissions: ~29% (2016). See Emissions by sector - Our World in Data , “Global greenhouse gas emissions by sector” figure, industry + energy use in industry. Philanthropic funding focused on industry: ~3% (annual average, 2017-2021). See Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 , figure 4. Calculation: $55M / $1.7B = 3%. [9] On the other hand, this could also suggest a hypothetical scenario in which philanthropic funding is less useful, perhaps because private sector incentives are well-aligned to make progress on climate change impact strategies. [10] For example, philanthropic funding could support a non-profit to advocate for increased government spending on early-stage R&D, demonstration sites, etc. [11] We developed these indicators by generally speaking with different climate researchers and philanthropists about their assessment/funding criteria, as well as reviewing publicly available frameworks such as Holden Karnofsky’s 2013 Importance, Tractability, and Neglectedness (ITN) framework , MacAskill et al 2022 ’s Significance, Persistence, and Contingency framework, and GiveWell’s research criteria . We do not adopt these specific terminologies because (1) they have formal and varied formulas that we do not use and (2) we think our terminology may be more easily interpretable by a broader audience. [12] We think the future of climate change is difficult to predict, and it is our general impression that there is fairly large disagreement and uncertainty over a wide range of future climate scenarios. We use a 2100 timeline to very roughly balance two broad scenarios: (1) mitigation efforts are relatively successful, and suffering due to climate change is concentrated through 2100; (2) mitigation efforts are relatively unsuccessful, and suffering due to climate change increases over time, including beyond 2100. We are highly uncertain about the future of climate change, but broadly think scenario 1 is more likely and would cause less suffering than scenario 2. We think this based on a medium-depth review of the available literature, as well as speaking with various climate scientists and generalist forecasters. For example: “Assessment of current policies suggests that the world is on course for around 3 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — still a catastrophic outcome, but a long way from 5 °C” Source: Hausfather and Peters 2020 ; “warming can be kept just below 2 degrees Celsius if all conditional and unconditional pledges are implemented in full and on time. Peak warming could be limited to 1.9–2.0 degrees Celsius (5%–95% range 1.4–2.8 °C) in the full implementation case—building on a probabilistic characterization of Earth system uncertainties in line with the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report6 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” Source: Meinshausen et al 2022 . To compare the effects of non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions to CO2 emissions, we use a 75-year global warming potential (GWP). This allows us to roughly estimate the amount of energy the emissions of 1 ton of a non-CO2 greenhouse gas will absorb through 2100. For additional background on GWP, see Understanding Global Warming Potentials | US EPA . We believe GWP is an imperfect approach to assessing global temperature effects, as well as suffering due to climate change. For example, see Allen et al 2018 (“Using conventional Global Warming Potentials (GWPs) to convert [short-lived climate pollutants] to ‘CO2-equivalent’ emissions misrepresents their impact on global temperature”). We use GWP75 because it is relatively simple to calculate and communicate, and because we believe our heuristics help us address two of the main flaws of GWP: GWP does not account for (1) varying potency within a given time period and (2) any potential effects beyond the GWP duration. Our heuristic, “is this problem or opportunity relevant across a wide range of climate scenarios, including scenarios with relatively high suffering?” is meant to downgrade mitigation efforts that are less likely to apply in longer-term (2100+) scenarios with relatively high suffering. In practice, we think these mitigation efforts are primarily limited to (a) single-instance reductions in near-term term climate pollutants (e.g., methane) and (b) CO2 removal with less than 100-year permanence. [13] We think the future of climate change is difficult to predict, and it is our general impression that there is fairly large disagreement and uncertainty over a wide range of future climate scenarios. For example, the IPCC outlines five Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSP), but does not make claims as to the likelihood of different scenarios occurring (Source: “...the developers of the SSPs make no claim as to the relative likelihood of any scenario coming to pass.” Explainer: How ‘Shared Socioeconomic Pathways’ explore future climate change - Carbon Brief ). Another major uncertainty is the degree to which “tipping elements” (“conditions beyond which changes in a part of the climate system become self-perpetuating. These changes may lead to abrupt, irreversible, and dangerous impacts with serious implications for humanity” Source: McKay et al 2022 ) exist and/or are likely to occur. All else equal, we think that impact strategies that remain relevant across a wide range of scenarios have a greater likelihood of reducing the most suffering due to climate change. Strategies that apply to worser-case scenarios may be especially impactful, since we think reducing climate change in worser-case scenarios will reduce relatively more suffering than similar efforts in better-case scenarios. For example, we think that avoiding a 0.5 °C global temperature increase from 1.5 °C to 2.0 °C will reduce relatively less suffering than avoiding a similar temperature increase from 2.5 °C to 3.0 °C. However, given uncertainties across different climate change scenarios and what we believe to be a moderate likelihood that we do not encounter worser-case scenarios (for example, “Assessment of current policies suggests that the world is on course for around 3 °C of warming above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century — still a catastrophic outcome, but a long way from 5 °C” Source: Hausfather and Peters 2020 ; “ warming can be kept just below 2 degrees Celsius if all conditional and unconditional pledges are implemented in full and on time. Peak warming could be limited to 1.9–2.0 degrees Celsius (5%–95% range 1.4–2.8 °C) in the full implementation case—building on a probabilistic characterization of Earth system uncertainties in line with the Working Group I contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report6 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change” Source: Meinshausen et al 2022 ). [14] Though this ranking is qualitative to allow for high degrees of uncertainty in our initial assessments, we think scale is generally a criteria for which we can ultimately have a relatively quantifiable metric. We generally consider scale to be low if we believe the problem or opportunity could affect less than 2% of future expected greenhouse gas emissions through 2100, medium for 2% to 5%, and high for greater than 5%. [15] Time frame is important when thinking about scale because (1) different greenhouse gases have different atmospheric lifetimes, (2) different interventions have varying levels of permanence, and (3) time frame impacts whether we prioritize mature ready-to-scale technologies over emerging technologies. For example, prioritizing a longer time frame may favor strategies that focus on permanently removing longer-lived climate pollutants (e.g., some direct air capture projects ) over single-instance avoidance of near-term (sometimes referred to as “short-lived”) climate pollutant emissions (e.g., refrigerant destruction ). See section Key uncertainties , Defining and estimating suffering due to climate change, for additional commentary. [16] Industry greenhouse gas emissions: ~29% (2016). See Emissions by sector - Our World in Data , “Global greenhouse gas emissions by sector” figure, industry + energy use in industry [17] We describe our assessment as low/medium/high to increase readability and avoid false precision. Since these terms can be interpreted differently, we use rough heuristics to define them as percentage likelihoods we think a strategy can, on average, be successful. Low = 0-60%, medium = 60-80%, high = 80-100%. [18] We are more concerned about false negatives than false positives during our initial assessment. Namely, we can catch false positives at later stages in our analysis whereas false negatives drop out of consideration, meaning we’ve lost the ability to rectify our mistake. [19] See Decarbonizing Heavy Industry | Giving Green for additional detail [20] “Energy-intensive industries (EIIs) produce basic materials, such as steel, petrochemicals, aluminum, cement, and fertilizers, that are responsible for around 22 percent of global CO2 emissions (Bataille 2019).” Unlocking the “Hard to Abate” Sectors | World Resources Institute . [21] For example, industry accounts for 29% of global greenhouse gas emissions and receives around 3% of climate philanthropic funding from foundations. Industry greenhouse gas emissions: ~29% (2016). See Emissions by sector - Our World in Data , “Global greenhouse gas emissions by sector” figure, industry + energy use in industry. Philanthropic funding focused on industry: ~3% (annual average, 2017-2021). See Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 , figure 4. Calculation: $55M / $1.7B = 3%. This might suggest that industry has a relatively high philanthropic funding need, since its percentage of philanthropic funding is lower than that of its emissions. This is a very rough heuristic, as there could be many other factors that mean this is not the case (e.g., limited philanthropic funding opportunities). [22] For example, see Climate Tech’s Four Valleys of Death and Why We Must Build a Bridge . [23] An approach might be low-interest due to relatively low scale or feasibility. It may also be low-interest due to a limited evidence base, minimal track record, political sensitivity, or lack of private sector incentives. [24] For example, see Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 , figure 4. From 2017-2021, Indonesia received an annual average of $25M in philanthropic funding, around 2% of country-specific funding (calculation: $25M / ($1.7B - $505M) = 2%. However, it is the world’s fifth largest emitter, equivalent to ~4% of global greenhouse gas emissions (see WRI: Indonesia Climate Change Data 2019 ). This might suggest that Indonesia has a relatively high philanthropic funding need, since its percentage of philanthropic funding is lower than that of its emissions. This is a very rough heuristic, as there could be many other factors that mean this is not the case (e.g., limited philanthropic funding opportunities). [25] We describe our assessment as low/medium/high to increase readability and avoid false precision. Since these terms can be interpreted differently, we use rough heuristics to define them as percentage likelihoods a climate philanthropy funding need is within the range we would consider for a top recommendation. Low = 0-60%, medium = 60-80%, high = 80-100%. [26] “2021 saw sizable [philanthropic] funding increases for forests and carbon dioxide removal.” Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 . [27] “In the last year, the federal government has committed to spend more than $580 billion to combat climate change through the passage of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). Within this $580 billion, there is significant funding supporting development and deployment of carbon dioxide removal…” WRI: Carbon Removal in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act, 2022 . [28] “Following the 2022 passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Evergreen Collaborative is now planning to work on implementing bills and state-level policy…” Evergreen Collaborative: Deep Dive | Giving Green . [29] Philanthropic funding focused on industry: ~3% (annual average, 2017-2021). See Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 , figure 4. Calculation: $55M / $1.7B = 3%. This might suggest that industry has a relatively high philanthropic funding need, since its percentage of philanthropic funding is lower than that of its emissions. This is a very rough heuristic, as there could be many other factors that mean this is not the case (e.g., limited philanthropic funding opportunities). [30] Bezos Earth Fund: The Bezos Earth Fund made its first grants to “Decarbonizing the Economy” in November 2020. “Bezos Earth Fund, Our Programs” n.d. Example of Bezos Earth Fund grant: “Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) today announced that it has received a $10 million grant from the Bezos Earth Fund to help significantly reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in both U.S. buildings and in energy-intensive industrial and transport sectors.” " RMI Awarded $10 Million from The Bezos Earth Fund to Accelerate Decarbonization of Buildings and Industry " 2020. Microsoft Climate Innovation Fund: “We’ll focus on areas such as direct carbon removal, digital optimization, advanced energy systems, industrial materials, circular economy, water technologies, sustainable agriculture, and business strategies for nature-based markets.” " Climate Innovation Fund " n.d. Giving Green note: We note that ClimateWorks Foundation’s reported annual average spending may have increased simply because ClimateWorks learned of more foundations already donating to decarbonizing heavy industry. However, we do not think this is the case. [31] One of these opportunities eventually received a top recommendation status. See Industrious Labs: Deep Dive | Giving Green for additional details. [32] See Climate change mitigation strategies research | Giving Green for our shallow and deep dives. [33] In general, we are most focused on climate benefits and our decision making does not typically place substantial weight on co-benefits (benefits not directly related to climate). However, there are instances in which a co-benefit may (a) attract additional funding (e.g., Good Food Institute’s work may also have positive animal welfare effects ) and/or (b) reduce suffering due to climate change in ways unrelated to greenhouse gases (e.g., BURN stoves allow households to reduce spending on cooking charcoal ). In these cases, we think it is useful to consider and highlight co-benefits. For adverse effects, we believe there are many highly cost-effective impact strategies that do not have substantial adverse effects. Therefore, we deprioritize strategies that we think might have large and/or inequitably shared adverse effects. [34] We describe our certainty as low/medium/high to increase readability and avoid false precision. Since these terms can be interpreted differently, we use rough heuristics to define them as percentage likelihoods the assumption is, on average, correct. Low = 0-60%, medium = 60-80%, high = 80-100%. [35] We think this is most likely the case for two main reasons: (1) many climate funders explicitly or implicitly value certainty in their giving decisions, so this means less-certain funding opportunities are relatively underfunded; and (2) we think some of the most promising pathways to scale (e.g., policy influence and technology innovation) are also inherently difficult to assess due to their long and complicated causal paths. [36] We use rough benchmarks as a way to compare the cost-effectiveness of different giving opportunities. As a benchmark for our top recommendations, we consider an opportunity if its estimated cost-effectiveness is plausibly within an order of magnitude of $1/tCO2e avoided or removed (i.e., less than $10/tCO2e). [37] See Activism: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis | Giving Green for additional explanation. [38] See Decarbonizing Heavy Industry | Giving Green , Table 1. Though our initial assessment was more informal, this table encapsulates the different strategies we generally considered. [39] Theory of change: See Decarbonizing Heavy Industry | Giving Green , “Theory of change for decarbonizing heavy industry”. CEA: See Decarbonizing Heavy Industry | Giving Green , “What is the cost-effectiveness of decarbonizing heavy industry?”. [40] Giving Green is part of IDinsight Inc., which is itself a charitable, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Our 501(c)(3) status precludes us from supporting or opposing political campaign activities and engaging in extensive lobbying. [41] Redacted, see “Key uncertainties” section, “Balancing transparency with other considerations” topic for additional commentary. [42] Redacted, see “Key uncertainties” section, “Balancing transparency with other considerations” topic for additional commentary. [43] Redacted, see “Key uncertainties” section, “Balancing transparency with other considerations” topic for additional commentary. [44] Redacted, see “Key uncertainties” section, “Balancing transparency with other considerations” topic for additional commentary. [45] We use rough benchmarks as a way to compare the cost-effectiveness of different giving opportunities. As a benchmark for our top recommendations, we consider an opportunity if its estimated cost-effectiveness is plausibly within an order of magnitude of $1/tCO2e avoided or removed (i.e., less than $10/tCO2e). [46] For example, see Climateworks Funding Trends 2022 , figure 4. From 2017-2021, “forests” received an annual average of $140M in philanthropic funding, around 8% of overall funding (calculation: $140M / $1.7B = 8%. [47] As a thought experiment, consider a hypothetical scenario where a donor has a strong preference for forest-based mitigation efforts. If we make a forest recommendation that can avoid emissions for $10 per tCO2e, the donor will donate $100, resulting in 10 tCO2e avoided. If we make a non-forest recommendation that can avoid emissions for $5 per tCO2e, the donor will donate $10, resulting in 2 tCO2e avoided. Thus, making a forest recommendation results in more tCO2e avoided, even if the non-forest recommendation is technically twice as cost-effective. To guard against making recommendations that vary dramatically in cost-effectiveness, we use rough benchmarks. For our top recommendations, we consider an opportunity if its estimated cost-effectiveness is plausibly within an order of magnitude of $1/tCO2e avoided or removed (i.e., less than $10/tCO2e). [48] For example, GiveDirectly (an unconditional cash transfer non-profit organization) believes that its launch of a U.S.-specific COVID-19 response also helped it draw in more funding for its international work. We have not investigated this claim in detail, but believe it is a reasonable and plausible inference. “In April 2020, we launched Project 100, a U.S. COVID-19 response…For the past decade, our core mission has been to reach people living in extreme poverty. While many millions in the United States are in poverty, they’re typically not facing extreme poverty as it is officially defined (living below $1.90/day)...We’ve driven over $70M to international programs from donors who initially gave to U.S. projects — more than our revenue for any year before 2020.” Working in the U.S. helped us get more money to international recipients | GiveDirectly . [49] For example, we may look more closely at web traffic, donor data, and/or solicit target audience feedback. [50] “[Near-term (also referred to as short-lived) climate pollutants] persist for a short time in the atmosphere but can be extremely potent in terms of their global warming potential compared to long-lasting greenhouse gases such as CO2.” World Bank: Short-Lived Climate Pollutants, 2014 . [51] For example: “This CEA includes highly subjective guess parameters and should not be taken literally. In particular, we estimated the change in likelihood that advanced reactors would move from a low- to a high-innovation scenario due to advocacy efforts, the change in that probability that could be attributed to nonprofits, and the number of years that advocacy moves a high-innovation scenario forward compared to the counterfactual. We have low confidence in the ability of our CEA to estimate the cost-effectiveness of NGOs’ US policy advocacy, community engagement, and technical assistance but view it as a slight positive input into our overall assessment of supporting advanced reactors.” Nuclear Power | Giving Green . [5 2] For example, we may reduce the complexity of our CEAs, since complexity can sometimes be associated with false precision. We may instead publish fewer full-length CEAs and more simplified BOTECs (“back of the envelope” calculations), even if we used more complex CEAs to inform our research.

Methods Summary // BACK In this report, we detail our logic for focusing on organisations working to accelerate climate policy and emissions reduction activities in Australia, how we determined organisations to analyse in-depth, and the criteria we used to evaluate those organisations. This report was last updated in December 2021. Table of Contents Introduction How we determined which organisations to analyse in-depth Step 1: Literature review and research theory Step 2: Expert interviews Step 3: Identification of key ‘approaches’ to policy change Step 4: Use the Importance, Tractability, and Neglectedness Framework to determine priority approaches Step 5: Identification of a longlist of organisations for ‘shallow dive’ analysis Step 6: Narrow down to a shortlist of high potential organisations Step 7: ‘Deep dive’ analysis Step 8: Final recommendations Endnotes Introduction There are well over a hundred organisations working to accelerate climate action in Australia. The Climate Action Network Australia alone has 125 member organisations. They range from large international non-government organisations (NGOs), through to small-scale local charities and community groups. Giving Green has tasked itself with identifying which of the organisations working to accelerate climate action in Australia stand to make the greatest impact with a marginal donation. To make the task feasible, it was necessary first to narrow the scope of our research focus. We settled on policy change because effective public policy has consistently proven to be a key driver of technological, human, business and industry behaviour change. In Australia, there has been a distinct lack of climate policy leadership at a federal level since the election of the Liberal-National Coalition Government in 2013. In the absence of federal government leadership, many of Australia’s state and territory governments have forged ahead, supporting a dramatic expansion of Australia’s renewable energy industry, assisting other sectors, like transport, to decarbonise, and adopting significantly more ambitious 2030 emissions reductions targets than the federal government. Nevertheless, Australia remains a major emitter, and the world’s third largest fossil fuel exporter. Improving Australia’s climate policy, both government and corporate, therefore remains a high priority, having potential to deliver globally significant emissions reductions benefits and accelerate international efforts to address the climate crisis. How we determined which organisations to analyse in-depth To create recommendations of the highest impact organisations working to improve climate policy in Australia that would make the best use of a marginal donation, we took the steps outlined below. For a more detailed explanation of our research process, see our document Giving Green Australia: 2021 Research Process . Step 1: Literature review and research theory We first surveyed the academic literature on advocacy and policy change, and qualitative research methods. We decided to rely heavily on interviews with experts in the field of climate policy, advocacy, and philanthropy (hereafter ‘experts’) to inform our research. We further decided to use Grounded Theory [1] to inform our approach to the expert interview piece of our research. Step 2: Expert interviews We conducted hour-long semi-structured interviews with 23 experts around three topics: (1) barriers to improving climate policy in Australia, (2) strategies or methods to overcome those barriers, (3) effective climate organisations that would make the best use of a marginal donation. Interviews were transcribed, coded using the qualitative data analysis software, and analysed to uncover emergent themes. Step 3: Identification of key ‘approaches’ to policy change The interviews were transcribed and coded using the qualitative data analysis software, and analysed to uncover emergent themes. We synthesised the expert opinion into five archetypal barriers to improving climate policy in Australia and five key approaches for overcoming those barriers. The major barriers identified were: the economics of fossil fuel extraction; state capture by the fossil fuel industry; the Liberal-National Coalition Government; the communications challenge; and the climate movement itself. The key approaches identified were: ‘outsider advocacy’ – applying external pressure to change government policy; ‘insider advocacy’ – lobbying and other forms of insider influence designed to change government policy from within; ‘influencing elections’ – direct involvement in election-focussed campaigns; ‘changing the story’ – identifying and scaling messages and messengers that increase pro-climate literacy, concern and behaviour change; and ‘applying and expanding the law’ – bringing court cases aimed at delivering positive climate outcomes. Step 4: Use the Importance, Tractability, and Neglectedness Framework to determine priority approaches We surveyed 52 experts, asking them to: order the barrier archetypes in terms of most to least important; rank each key approach to policy change according to the Importance, Tractability, Neglectedness (ITN) Framework; and name their top three climate organisations that could make the best use of a marginal donation. We also convened two expert focus groups to discuss the survey findings and discover if any positions or ITN rankings changed significantly through facilitated conversation. This process allowed us to identify ‘state capture by the fossil fuel industry’ and ‘the Liberal-National Coalition Government’ as the greatest barriers to accelerating climate action in Australia, and ‘insider advocacy’, ‘outsider advocacy’, and ‘changing the story’ as the highest priority approaches for delivering policy change at present. It also provided us with data on the organisations the expert community thought would make the best use of a marginal donation. Step 5: Identification of a longlist of organisations for ‘shallow dive’ analysis In parallel with Step 4, we used the expert interview data from Step 2 to develop a longlist of fifteen organisations to investigate further through ‘shallow dives’. Each shallow dive drew on desk research and further insights from the expert consultations. In particular, we assessed each organisation on the list using the following questions: What are they and what do they do? What have they accomplished or claimed to have accomplished? What potential do they have for impact? How strong is the organisation and what are their risks? What is their financial need? Based on that initial assessment, we narrowed the list down to twelve organisations that were asked to complete a short survey focussed on the assessment criteria. Several organisations also participated in hour-long semi-structured interviews. The final twelve ‘shallow dives’ can be viewed here. Step 6: Narrow down to a shortlist of high potential organisations We narrowed down our organisation longlist by first removing any organisations that did not have a major focus on the key approaches of ‘insider advocacy’, ‘outsider advocacy’, or ‘changing the story’. We narrowed the list further by carefully considering what organizations could do the most good with extra funding. In general, we believe that smaller organizations can make the most use of the marginal dollar, and therefore we excluded a number of large organizations that we believed were effective but also well-funded. The final ‘deep dive’ analysis list was identified based on the remaining organisations that received the highest number of nominations in our expert survey. Those organisations were: Beyond Zero Emissions, Farmers for Climate Action, and Original Power. Step 7: ‘Deep dive’ analysis Our ‘deep dive’ analysis of these final shortlisted organisations was undertaken based on the following elements: Operational context History of the organisation, structure, and budget Activities, tactics and achievements Room for additional funding Theory of change analysis Risks Our assessment was informed by our ‘shallow dives’, and additional in-depth interviews and consultations with each organisation, expert interviews, and desk-top research. Operational context For each deep dive, we started with an assessment of the context in which the organisation is operating. Understanding that context is key to not only determining an organisation’s past effectiveness, but also its potential future impact and theory of change. History of organisation, structure, and budget We then undertook a detailed examination of the organisation’s history, looking at how and why it was founded, how its work has evolved over time, its structure, strength, and budget. Activities, tactics and achievements Next, we reviewed each organisation’s key activities, tactics, and achievements. We asked questions like: What kinds of work does the organisation do? What tactics and strategies does it use to deliver climate policy change? What has it accomplished to date? What evidence is there to support its claims? Room for additional funding One of our key assessment criteria was the impact a marginal donation would have on the organisation. As such, we analysed how additional funds would be used by the organisation, and the relative impact that funding would have on the organisation going forward. We also assessed the organisation's capacity to absorb additional donations. Theory of change analysis The centrepiece of our ‘deep dive’ assessments were in-depth analyses of each organisation’s theory of change. We constructed a diagrammatic theory of change for each organisation to describe how they seek to deliver impact. For each theory of change, we used the framework: inputs, activities, outputs, outcome, and impact. After constructing each theory of change, we noted each of the major assumptions underpinning how the organisation’s activities and outputs lead to the desired outcomes and impact. We then undertook a critical assessment of how likely those assumptions were to hold. Finally, we categorized each assumption examined as most likely holds , may hold , or is unlikely to hold . Risks For each organisation we evaluated, our research team discussed what we thought were the greatest risks facing the organisation. We then tested those risks with the organisations to better understand whether they had identified those risks and how they plan to manage them. We also looked at broader risks to the organisation delivering the impact intended. Step 8: Final recommendations Based on the ‘deep dive’ assessments, final recommendations were made on each of the three organisations. We concluded that all three organisations are undertaking high impact work to improve climate policy in Australia. We further concluded that the impact of a marginal donation to each organisation would be high. We therefore recommended all three organisations for additional funding. Endnotes [1] See for eg. Charmaz, Kathy. 2008. “Constructionism and Grounded Theory.” In Handbook of Constuctionist Research , edited by J Holstein and J Gubrium, 397–412. New York. // BACK

Forestry // BACK This report was last updated in January 2023. The previous version of this report was published in August 2022 . Table of Contents 1 Executive Summary 2 How do forests impact climate change? 3 What is driving tree loss? 4 How do we fight tree loss? 4.1 Overview 4.2 Reduce deforestation and degradation 4.3 Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration 4.4 Improved forest management 4.5 Fire management 4.6 Agroforestry 5 What interventions did Giving Green find most promising? 5.1 Giving Green’s criteria 5.2 Assessing the importance of intervention areas 5.3 Assessing tractability and neglectedness 5.4 Reduced meat consumption can address the drivers of deforestation. 6 What is Giving Green doing next? 7 Appendix A: Interventions focused on reducing deforestation and degradation 7.1 Protected Areas 7.2 Indigenous Protected Areas 7.3 Community Forestry Management 7.4 Reduce the intrusion of roads into remote forests 7.5 Increase crop productivity 7.6 Increase fuelwood efficiency/cookstoves 7.7 Decrease demand for agricultural commodities 7.8 Supply chain initiatives 7.9 Discourage illegal logging 7.10 Improve land tenure security 7.11 Payments for ecosystem services 8 Appendix B: Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration 8.1 Increasing tree efficiency 8.2 Tree planting 9 Appendix C: Improved forest management, fire management, and agroforestry 9.1 Improved forest management 9.2 Fire management 9.3 Agroforestry 10 Appendix D: Spending on forestry interventions 11 Appendix E: Co-benefits 11.1 Reducing deforestation and forest degradation 11.2 Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration 11.3 Improved forest management 11.4 Fire management 11.5 Agroforestry 12 Works cited 1 Executive Summary Giving Green investigated interventions that add more trees or prevent tree loss. We evaluated interventions based on their importance (mitigation potential), tractability (likelihood of progress), and neglectedness (need for additional funding). Many forestry interventions are important, but tractability and neglectedness can be limited. For example, interventions that stop deforestation in one area may shift tree loss elsewhere. Also, forestry projects are generally relatively well-funded. For instance, various foundations have committed $5B to protect and conserve 30 percent of Earth, including forests (Wildlife Conservation Society, 2021). Therefore, we do not believe most forestry projects offer philanthropists the greatest value for money. However, reducing livestock demand may be promising for preventing deforestation because demand for agricultural land is a significant driver of deforestation. In particular, significant amounts of forestland are cleared to make way for beef, palm oil, and soy production. In our 2022 food sector investigation , we found that supporting alternative proteins may be the most cost-effective way for donors to help reduce meat consumption. Tying this with our deforestation research, we believe replacing some meat consumption with alternative proteins (e.g., plant-based burgers) may be a cost-effective way to prevent forest destruction. However, alternative proteins have not yet dented beef consumption, and there is limited evidence for how they may scale in the future as they improve in price, taste, and convenience. Therefore, we will continue to evaluate alternative protein funding opportunities as this field develops. In 2022, we investigated organizations promoting alternative proteins, including the Good Food Institute , New Harvest , and the Plant Based Foods Institute . We wrote shallow dive reports on New Harvest and the Plant Based Foods Institute. We wrote a deep dive report on the Good Food Institute and classified it as one of our top recommendations to reduce climate change . We also refreshed our forest carbon offsets report since many forestry projects finance themselves through offsets, which are in high demand. We believe there is value in directing businesses towards forestry offsets that are high-quality and cost-effective. 2 How do forests impact climate change? Forests can either be sinks or sources of carbon dioxide (CO2), depending on their balance of carbon inputs and outputs. [1] Overall, forests can help mitigate climate change by removing CO2 from the atmosphere. Preventing deforestation also helps avoid carbon emissions. In some cases, forests can cause warming by reducing the Earth’s reflectivity (albedo) and making the Earth absorb more sunlight. This effect is most pronounced at higher latitudes and in mountainous or dry regions where slow-growing trees with dark leaves absorb more sunlight than light-colored ground or snow (Popkin, 2019). This effect is of much less concern in tropical forests. 3 What is driving tree loss? Almost a quarter of global tree loss is due to permanent deforestation, while the remainder comes from temporary forest degradation (e.g., logging, wildfires). The agricultural sector is strongly associated with deforestation. As of 2018, humans have destroyed about one-third of the world’s forests by converting them into land for crops and grazing (FAO, 2020; Ritchie & Roser, 2021a; Williams, 2006). Urban and built-up land played a much smaller role in deforestation. Between 2005 to 2013, 70 to 80 percent of tropical and subtropical deforestation was due to clearing land for either agriculture or tree plantations (Pendrill et al., 2019; Ritchie & Roser, 2021a) (Figure 1). Beef production was responsible for 41 percent of global deforestation. Soybean and palm oil were responsible for almost one-fifth of deforestation. Patterns of tropical deforestation have primarily remained the same after 2013. We expect that agriculture will continue to drive deforestation in the future, especially as the global population increases and countries become wealthier. Figure 1: Drivers of tropical deforestation (Pendrill et al., 2019; Ritchie & Roser, 2021a). About 95 percent of deforestation occurs in the tropics, while the remaining 5 percent occurs in temperate regions (Ritchie & Roser, 2021b). Countries losing substantial forest areas include Brazil, Indonesia, Tanzania, and Myanmar. 4 How do we fight tree loss? 4.1 Overview The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) Working Group III report on climate change mitigation included the following major categories for fighting tree loss (Nabuurs et al., 2022): Reduce deforestation and degradation Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration Improved forest management (IFM) by timber companies Fire prevention Agroforestry 4.2 Reduce deforestation and degradation Interventions that curb deforestation and degradation can be direct or enabling activities (Figure 2). Direct activities include establishing and managing conserved areas and decreasing the economic benefits of clearing land. Enabling activities increase the likelihood that direct activities will succeed. Figure 2: Examples of interventions that reduce deforestation and forest degradation. Dashed lines indicate enabling relationships. A light gray box indicates activities that REDD+ can finance. Direct activities that reduce tree loss include establishing and managing conserved areas (e.g., Protected Areas, Indigenous Protected Areas, Community Forestry Management) and decreasing the economic benefits of clearing land (e.g., reducing land-use change related to agricultural commodities). Enabling activities include discouraging illegal logging, Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), and improved land tenure security. 4.3 Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration Tree planting is a form of natural carbon removal. People can plant new trees in previously forested (reforestation) or never forested (afforestation) areas (Figure 3). People can also restore degraded forests by planting trees and/or improving soils (forest ecosystem restoration). Improving trees’ carbon removal efficiency helps enable tree planting programs. Figure 3: Examples of interventions that enhance carbon removal from forests. 4.4 Improved forest management IFM refers to forestry practices that increase carbon stocks or reduce GHG emissions relative to business-as-usual forestry practices. Major IFM categories include reducing environmental impacts from harvesting timber, protecting conservation zones, and ensuring the growth and regeneration of trees (Griscom & Cortez, 2013) (Figure 4). Figure 4: Examples of IFM interventions 4.5 Fire management Fire management includes fuel management, wildfire management, and wildfire prevention (Figure 5). Fuel management (e.g., controlled burns) reduces the risk of catastrophic wildfires that would destroy more vegetation. Figure 5: Examples of fire management interventions 4.6 Agroforestry Agroforestry integrates trees and shrubberies into land intended for crops and livestock. This practice can increase the amount of carbon stored in trees and the soil. 5 What interventions did Giving Green find most promising? 5.1 Giving Green’s criteria Our goal is to select the most promising interventions based on importance, tractability, and neglectedness, which we define as follows: Importance – How much GHG emissions can the intervention avoid or remove from the atmosphere (in expectation). Tractability – How likely each intervention is to succeed in avoiding or removing GHGs from the atmosphere. Neglectedness – Whether the intervention area has room for more funding. 5.2 Assessing the importance of intervention areas We found that the primary intervention areas for decreasing forestry-related emissions have varying levels of effectiveness. The IPCC reported the following technical [2] and economic [3] GHG mitigation potentials between 2020 and 2050 [4] (Nabuurs et al., 2022) (Figure 6). Figure 6: IPCC mitigation potential between 2020 and 2050 for reducing deforestation and degradation, afforestation/reforestation, IFM, fire management, and agroforestry (Nabuurs et al., 2022). The mitigation potential for fire management focuses on its potential for savannas and grasslands; the carbon effects of fire management in forests are uncertain because emissions from controlled fires could exceed avoided emissions from subsequent burns. Markers represent the mean mitigation potential, while the bars represent the full range of possibilities. In addition, the IPCC used global warming potential values for 100 years. IFM and fire management are less important than the other forestry intervention areas. Although agroforestry’s technical mitigation potential was on par with reducing deforestation and degradation and afforestation/reforestation, its economic mitigation potential is relatively low. It is conceivable that agroforestry could become more cost-effective in the future, but we do not expect it to become cheap very quickly. Ultimately, the most important intervention areas appear to be reducing deforestation and degradation and afforestation/reforestation. 5.3 Assessing tractability and neglectedness We deprioritized many forestry interventions because they fell short in tractability and/or neglectedness. Because the tractability and neglectedness of the various solutions were difficult to quantify, we categorized how well the interventions met these metrics as “High,” “Medium,” and “Low” (Table 1). We describe these ratings and summarize our findings in Table 2. For more information on how we rated these various forestry interventions on tractability and neglectedness, please see Appendices A-E. Table 1: Descriptions of ratings for tractability and neglectedness Table 2: Tractability and neglectedness of forestry interventions 5.4 Reduced meat consumption can address the drivers of deforestation. Overall, Giving Green believes that interventions focused on reducing meat consumption are likely the most promising current avenue for philanthropists to limit deforestation. For example, reducing beef consumption could play a key role in reducing deforestation because beef production is a major driver of tree loss. Decreasing consumption of other meats, such as chicken and pork, would also slow down deforestation because palm oil and soy are common ingredients in their feed. We were especially keen on reduced meat consumption because, unlike many other interventions we investigated, it addresses the root causes of deforestation. Crucially, interventions that do not address the root causes of deforestation always run the risk of displacing deforestation, which is challenging to measure and impacts tractability. Based on our prior investigation into food sector emissions , we believe that promoting alternative proteins may be the most promising method for reducing meat consumption. Under this theory of change, alternative proteins could displace some of the demand for conventional meats if they became competitive with conventional meats. Currently, alternative protein as a climate change mitigation strategy is highly speculative, and more research is needed. Additionally, reducing meat consumption may not impact deforestation in Sub-saharan Africa, where much of the region’s tree loss is due to subsistence farming, not beef, palm oil, and soy exports. We do not currently plan to investigate this area further but may update our broader views in the future based on new evidence and changing funding landscapes. 6 What is Giving Green doing next? After we selected alternative proteins as our most promising intervention for philanthropists to limit deforestation, we investigated organizations that advocate for alternative proteins. We conducted shallow dive investigations into New Harvest and the Plant Based Foods Institute and a deep dive investigation into the Good Food Institute (GFI). In 2022, we recommended GFI based on its accomplishments, organizational strengths, strategic approach, and cost-effectiveness. We believe GFI has substantial room to grow in its three programmatic areas (scientific research, policy advocacy, and corporate engagement) and across its various offices, and that it will increase the likelihood of alternative proteins going mainstream. Since alternative protein production is still in its early stages, we plan to continue to monitor its climate impact and look forward to following GFI’s efforts in this space. In 2022, we also refreshed our forestry offsets report because of the high demand for this offset. Although many forestry offsets face issues with additionality, permanence, and leakage, there is such a broad diversity of forestry offsets that we believe some high-quality and innovative offsets may be impactful. Directing donors who want to purchase forestry offsets towards these high-quality offsets could reduce the amount of money spent on low-quality forestry offsets. However, we generally recommend donating to policy organizations over purchasing carbon offsets because policy tends to be more cost-effective in expectation. 7 Appendix A: Interventions focused on reducing deforestation and degradation 7.1 Protected Areas 7.1.1 Background Preserving forests as Protected Areas (PAs) is a common policy instrument. PAs have land-use restrictions that prevent or limit extractive activities on their land. PAs vary in size and degree of protection. PAs include national parks, wildlife sanctuaries, nature reserves, and buffer areas alongside roads. Some PAs allow for some extraction, while others solely focus on conservation. 7.1.2 Tractability According to a meta-analysis of deforestation drivers, PAs were consistently associated with less deforestation (Busch & Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). However, PAs are disproportionately sited on land with characteristics that inhibit land-use change (e.g., slope, elevation, remoteness) (Joppa & Pfaff, 2009; Venter et al., 2018). As a result, these sites are less likely to experience deforestation in the first place, and protecting them may not satisfy additionality. Additionally, PAs are not necessarily permanent; people may downgrade, downsize, and degazette them over time (Mascia & Pailler, 2011). This impermanence is associated with social pressures to access and use PAs’ natural resources. One study found that across almost 2,000 PAs, PAs lost forested land at an average rate of 0.18 percent per year. PAs with lower protection status lost forested land at the highest rate (0.39 percent per year) (Collins & Mitchard, 2017). PAs can have spillover effects on surrounding areas. For example, protecting one place from deforestation could lead to forest clearing in another location (leakage). PAs can also prevent deforestation in another place by discouraging road development and industry investments (blockage). According to one study, 11.8 percent of the PAs that reduced deforestation within their boundaries led to leakage, while 54.8 percent led to blockage (Fuller et al., 2019). 7.1.3 Neglectedness Nine grantmakers pledged in September 2021 to donate $5B between 2021 and 2031 to efforts focused on conserving at least 30 percent of Earth (Wildlife Conservation Society, 2021). Since large funders have already committed to spending so much on conservation, it seems unlikely that other donors would have as much additional impact if they donated to this space. 7.2 Indigenous Protected Areas 7.2.1 Tractability Some studies have found less deforestation occurs on Indigenous lands (ILs) compared to non-protected areas and that in some regions, ILs outperform traditional PAs in preventing deforestation (Sze et al., 2022). Indeed, a deforestation meta-analysis found that the presence of Indigenous peoples was associated with lower deforestation rates (Busch & Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). The correlation between the presence of Indigenous peoples and lower deforestation rates can be explained to some degree by limited resources and lack of market access. However, even when researchers accounted for these differences, ethnicity was still a significant factor across several studies (FAO & FILAC, 2021). One explanation is that traditional knowledge of the environment and its response to human practices could encourage more sustainable practices (Sze et al., 2022). There are numerous challenges to securing land tenure for Indigenous peoples. For example, strengthening territorial rights is expensive, complex, and lengthy. Additionally, some countries do not recognize Indigenous or tribal communities as legal entities (FAO & FILAC, 2021). Furthermore, government recognition of territorial rights to the land may not reduce deforestation. For example, forest users may be interested in clearing the land anyway, and IPAs face challenges related to permanence, additionality, and leakage similar to PAs’. 7.2.2 Neglectedness We believe that IPAs are not especially neglected. For example, a coalition of governments and private funders have pledged $1.7B to help Indigenous and local communities protect tropical forests (Beasley, 2021). Additionally, this intervention area receives funding from groups not solely focused on climate, including traditional environmental organizations and groups focused on human rights. 7.3 Community Forestry Management 7.3.1 Tractability Early research into CFM did not show strong evidence for effectiveness because the studies were not rigorously designed (Bowler et al., 2012). In general, evaluating the efficacy of CFM has been challenging because there are significant differences in how people implement CFM. For example, there have been instances where CFM only exists on paper (Lund et al., 2009). Later research into CFM has not suggested a substantial impact on deforestation. For example, a meta-analysis on the drivers of deforestation found that CFM was not consistently associated with either higher or lower levels of deforestation (Busch & Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). In some cases, CFM reduced deforestation by providing better governance, while in other instances, CFM increased deforestation by encouraging agricultural conversion (Barsimantov & Kendall, 2012). In addition, a study published in 2015 found no difference in deforestation between CFM and non-CFM areas, although CFM areas that included PES had some minor success (Rasolofoson et al., 2015). 7.3.2 Neglectedness It is unclear how much people spend on CFM and how much room for more funding this intervention has. However, it is likely that CFM already receives substantial financing from governments and agencies focused on global development. For example, the World Bank has worked on projects that shift land tenure towards community-based management (The World Bank, 2016). Rainforest Alliance is a major organization working on CFM. Its annual revenue in 2020 was about $52M, but it did not spend all of this on CFM (Rainforest Alliance Inc., 2021). 7.4 Reduce the intrusion of roads into remote forests 7.4.1 Tractability Reducing the intrusion of road projects into remote forests is challenging because it often means pushing back against companies with a vested interest in increasing road networks. Therefore, efforts that target roads with low economic benefits are probably more tractable. Leakage presents another tractability concern. 7.4.2 Neglectedness Reducing road development into forests has attracted the interest of some major funders. For example, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation has previously supported work along the BR-319 Highway in the Brazilian Amazon. Its most recent grant was a roughly $1M grant to Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a Brazilian higher education institution and think tank, in August 2021 (Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, 2021). It is challenging to quantify this intervention’s room for more funding because it overlaps with other interventions. For example, efforts to conserve forests also tackle reduced road development because people cannot build major road systems in protected areas. 7.5 Increase crop productivity 7.5.1 Tractability Increased farm productivity can have mixed effects on deforestation. For example, market-driven intensification often leads to cropland expansion because farmers are incentivized to grow and sell even more crops, clearing trees in the process. In contrast, technology-driven intensification often leads to a global net saving of land, although deforestation may continue to occur in specific areas (Byerlee et al., 2014). In general, the direction and magnitude of land-use change are context-specific and depend on land and forest governance and labor markets. Additionally, increased farm productivity is logistically challenging because it requires building local capacity and developing new infrastructure. 7.5.2 Neglectedness Increasing farm productivity is complex and receives funding from organizations working on other cause areas, such as international development. Funders include government agencies, bilateral and multilateral institutions, and private foundations. For example, BMGF gave $398M in 2021 to efforts that support agricultural development (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2021) [5] . Additionally, many of the countries that spend the greatest proportion of their government expenditures on agriculture are low-income countries that are presumably working on improving farm productivity (FAO, 2021). [6] Overall, it seems likely that increasing farm productivity is not especially neglected. 7.6 Increase fuelwood efficiency/cookstoves 7.6.1 Tractability Efficient cookstoves are meant to decrease the amount of wood fuel households use. However, they do not necessarily lead to reductions due to variations in human behavior. Overall, rigorous impact assessments of fuel-efficient cookstoves and their effect on fuel usage have mixed results. We describe a few studies below: Bensch and Peters (2015) – Improved cookstoves in Senegal led to large decreases in firewood usage. However, 27% of meals were still cooked on traditional stoves in the treatment group a year after distribution. Berkouwer and Dean (2019) – Improved cookstoves in Kenya reduced fuel expenditure by 40% and effects persisted for 18 months after the cookstoves’ adoption. Hanna et al. (2016) – There was no change in GHG emissions from a cookstove project in India, primarily due to the disadoption of stoves. Aung et al. (2013) – There was no change in fuel usage for a cookstove project that received emissions credits in India. Beltrama and Levine (2013) – There was no effect of an improved cookstove on fuel usage in Senegal. Overall, we cannot confidently recommend cookstove projects unless causality has been validated with a high-impact evaluation. 7.6.2 Neglectedness Clean cookstoves may not be especially neglected as a policy solution. For example, between 2017 and 2019, clean cookstove companies received an estimated $26M in grants and $127M in capital (Ferguson et al., 2021). For more information, please see our Fuel-Efficient Cookstoves report . 7.7 Decrease demand for agricultural commodities Beef, soy, palm oil, paper, and pulp are the leading agricultural commodities behind deforestation (Pendrill et al., 2019; Ritchie & Roser, 2021a). We focused our investigation on beef and palm oil because they cause more extensive deforestation than soy, paper, and pulp. 7.7.1 Livestock 7.7.1.1 Tractability Curbing demand for animal products could reduce the amount of land that people clear to meet livestock needs and decrease direct emissions from ruminants. Interventions for reducing meat consumption include the following: Implementing large-scale programs that reduce meat consumption (e.g., Meatless Mondays) Educating people on the consequences of eating meat Increasing the cost of meat, such as by taxing meat Making alternative proteins competitive with conventional meat According to our research on food sector emissions , these interventions vary in tractability and neglectedness. In general, we were keen on interventions encouraging consumers to eat less meat in invisible ways, such as through nudges and making alternative proteins competitive with conventional proteins. However, we did not find nonprofit organizations that implement nudges well at scale, which hampers that intervention’s tractability. Based on our analysis of alternative proteins, it is plausible that improving and promoting alternative proteins could displace demand for conventional meat. However, there is limited evidence for its ability to reduce emissions, and there are open questions, such as what foods people would substitute with alternative proteins. Therefore, alternative proteins as a lever for reducing emissions is speculative and requires more research. 7.7.1.2 Neglectedness An analysis by Vivid Economics stated that public funding for alternative proteins RD&D and commercialization should reach $4.4B and $5.7B per year to unlock their full socioeconomic and environmental benefits (Vivid Economics, 2021). Nonprofits that advocate for increased RD&D include the Good Food Institute and New Harvest; the Plant Based Foods Institute [7] helps existing alternative protein companies. According to calls with the organizations, the Good Food Institute plans to raise $35M in 2022, while New Harvest and the Plant Based Foods Institute [8] have budgets of $2.6M and $1.2M, respectively. In 2021, the Open Philanthropy Project granted $10M to the Good Food Institute and $3.5M to the Plant Based Foods Association (Open Philanthropy, 2021b, 2021a). According to the organizations and experts we have spoken to, these organizations most likely have room for more funding. Venture capital (VC) funding for APs reached over $880M in Q1 of 2022 (Frederick & Nacionales, 2022). Although this amount of funding is high, it is below VC investment trends from 2021, which earned a record of $6B. [9] Despite VC funding entering APs, philanthropic funders said that AP R&D still requires philanthropic support to fund open-access research and risk protection if private sector spending dips. 7.7.2 Palm oil 7.7.2.1 Tractability People can reduce the demand for palm oil by promoting the use of other types of oils. However, replacing palm oil with different oils can lead to more deforestation because palm oil has a higher yield than other oils and requires less land (Ritchie & Roser, 2021a). Alternatively, people can decrease the demand for palm oil by banning palm oil-based biofuels. However, we did not investigate this intervention further because only 5 percent of palm oil is used for bioenergy (Ritchie & Roser, 2021a). Therefore, cutting palm oil-based biofuels is unlikely to be a high-leverage opportunity for reducing emissions. Given that palm oil is included in animal feed, it seemed likely that decreasing meat consumption could reduce deforestation related to palm oil production. 7.7.2.2 Neglectedness Two major nonprofit organizations working on reducing palm oil production include the Rainforest Action Network and the World Wildlife Fund. The Rainforest Action Network had a revenue of almost $9.8M in 2020 (Rainforest Action Network, 2020), and the World Wildlife Fund had a revenue of almost $290M in 2020 (World Wildlife Fund Inc., 2021). However, these organizations do not work exclusively on reducing palm oil and are instead focused on conservation more broadly. 7.8 Supply chain initiatives 7.8.1 Tractability We have numerous concerns related to tractability. We highlight some problems below: Company pledges – Many companies do not translate their promises into time-bound commitments, such as a code of conduct (Lambin et al., 2018). Also, there is little empirical research on the effectiveness of codes of conduct because this information is typically proprietary. Certification schemes – Certification schemes have not necessarily reduced tree loss. One study found that from 2001 to 2016, 40 percent of the area under certified systems in Indonesia, Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea still suffered from deforestation, degradation, and fire damage (Cazzolla Gatti et al., 2019). Also, certification schemes only cover a fraction of regional producers and do not prevent leakage (Lambin et al., 2018). Moratoria – In 2009, major meatpacking companies in the Brazilian Amazon voluntarily signed agreements to stop purchasing products from areas that went above legal limits for deforestation. However, by 2014, this moratorium had no impact on average on forest cover in the regions surrounding the signatory slaughterhouses (Alix-Garcia & Gibbs, 2017). Additionally, cattle reared on illegally cleared land were often shuttled around in ways that would circumvent monitoring (cattle laundering). The beef moratorium could have avoided leakage and laundering if it had covered the entire supply chain, but tracking individual animals would be costly. We deprioritized our investigation into applying a beef moratorium because it is complex, and we do not expect it to be cost-effective. [10] Finally, it has also been challenging for studies to establish whether supply chain initiatives have been effective and additional because of sample bias (van der Ven & Cashore, 2018). Organizations opting for forest certification may already operate in places with strictly regulated markets. Overall, we do not find supply chain initiatives especially tractable. 7.8.2 Neglectedness The private sector chiefly controls supply chain initiatives. There could be room for philanthropy to set up supply chain initiatives and improve them, but we do not see this as high-impact because there is a lack of evidence on their effectiveness. The Rainforest Alliance is a certification leader and supports companies in their sustainability goals. Its revenue was $52M in 2020, but it did not spend all of this on supply chain initiatives (Rainforest Alliance Inc., 2021). 7.9 Discourage illegal logging 7.9.1 Tractability A meta-analysis found that law enforcement outside of PAs was associated with lower deforestation rates (Busch & Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). Indeed, inadequate law enforcement was the most commonly reported institutional failure for conservation in Latin America, Africa, and Asia (Scullion et al., 2019). Improving law enforcement would likely reduce illegal deforestation, but this process is complex in practice. For example, it may require clarifying land titles and fighting corruption. Additionally, increased law enforcement may be politically unpopular and difficult to maintain (Brechin et al., 2002). Technology used in discouraging illegal logging has room for improvement. For example, data from satellite-based tools may not be frequent enough to help rangers stop illegal logging crimes as they are happening. Additionally, there have not been any studies linking acoustic sensors to decreased deforestation. 7.9.2 Neglectedness Organizations that work on preventing illegal logging include well-funded groups that are not solely focused on climate change, such as Greenpeace, Chatham House, Global Witness, the Environmental Investigation Agency, and the Center for International Forestry Research. Greenpeace and the Center for International Forestry Research are the most well-funded of these organizations. Between Greenpeace and the Greenpeace Fund, Greenpeace reported about $59.5M in annual revenue in 2020 (Greenpeace Fund Inc., 2021; Greenpeace Inc, 2021); the Center for International Forestry Research reported a yearly income of $38M in 2019 (Center for International Forestry Research, 2019). These revenues are for the organizations as a whole and not just efforts related to illegal logging. Rainforest Connection is a nonprofit that monitors forests using acoustic sensors. Its annual revenue in 2019 was approximately $1.8M (Rainforest Connection, 2020). 7.10 Improve land tenure security 7.10.1 Tractability According to a meta-analysis, tenure security was associated with less deforestation but did not guarantee forest protection (Robinson et al., 2014). Local contexts, such as the value of land if it were converted from forest to something else, are important. 7.10.2 Neglectedness Given that land tenure security is so complex, it seems likely that it could absorb more money. However, large agencies such as USAID are already working on this problem (USAID, 2021). There may not be a straightforward way for philanthropy, especially retail donors, to get involved in improving land tenure security. 7.11 Payments for ecosystem services 7.11.1 Tractability According to one meta-analysis, PES programs were generally associated with less deforestation (Busch & Ferretti-Gallon, 2017). Namely, four studies demonstrated less deforestation, while the fifth study found little effect. (The study that found minimal impact on deforestation was focused on areas with low deforestation rates and low threats of future deforestation.) The meta-analysis’ researchers concluded that PES was promising but that more research would be needed given the limited number of studies. In the years after that meta-analysis was published, there has since been a promising randomized controlled trial where researchers compensated landowners in Uganda for not cutting down their trees over two years (Jayachandran et al., 2017). According to the study’s results, the RCT led to reduced deforestation, and there was no evidence of leakage in neighboring forests. The authors estimated that for its base case, where deforestation is delayed three years and program effects are undone after four years, the program’s cost would be $0.46 per averted metric ton of CO2. The authors calculated that permanent avoidance of CO2 would cost $2.60 per metric ton. Although this cost is relatively low, its cost-effectiveness is less than that of our 2021 top funding opportunities. [11] We have concerns about the ability of PES interventions to scale because their success is highly intervention- and context-specific. For example, PES payments will need to be competitive with returns from agriculture and there needs to be sufficient law enforcement and recognition of land tenure rights (Wunder, 2005). Furthermore, the effectiveness of PES interventions is affected by permanence, leakage, and additionality risks. As described in SoGive’s criticism of Cool Earth, a PES-focused nonprofit previously recommended by Giving What We Can, there are also risks post-exit and it is unclear whether PES benefits will persist after an intervention ends (Joshi, 2018). 7.11.2 Neglectedness PES programs can probably absorb a significant amount of funding because they pass cash on to their program participants. Two PES programs we are familiar with have relatively small annual revenues. For example, Cool Earth had a revenue of about $4M in 2020 (Cool Earth Action, 2021), and the Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust, the organization involved in Jayachandran et al. (2017), had a revenue of about $730,000 in 2019 (Chimpanzee Sanctuary and Wildlife Conservation Trust, 2019). 8 Appendix B: Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration 8.1 Increasing tree efficiency 8.1.1 Tractability Researchers are developing trees that can grow more quickly and take in more carbon. For example, researchers at the Living Carbon Team released a preprint study on how they have genetically modified a hybrid poplar to accumulate 53 percent more above-ground dry biomass over five months than non-genetically modified trees (Living Carbon Team et al., 2022). Cultivating more efficient trees using traditional methods, such as hybridizing through cross-pollination, is also possible. For example, scientists could potentially select traits that affect tree growth, such as how straight their trunks are and when they drop their leaves (Reynolds, 2022). Efforts to remove carbon by increasing tree efficiency may remain somewhat limited if research into genetically modified trees is kept as proprietary information. Increased tree efficiency seems most appropriate in settings with a profit motive, such as growing trees quickly to sell lumber. In addition, tree efficiency projects will face problems common to tree planting, such as leakage and permanence. 8.1.2 Neglectedness As far as we know, increased tree efficiency has not received significant philanthropic attention and funding. It seems likely that it would attract attention from private investors who want to increase wood harvesting yields. 8.2 Tree planting 8.2.1 Tractability 8.2.1.1 Mass tree planting We define mass tree planting programs as ones where people intentionally plant trees by hand or machine (e.g., drones), often as part of some campaign. Mass tree planting programs may face the following challenges: High failure rate – Tree planting programs often fail because many emphasize tree planting over tree-growing. For example, many tree planting programs proposed under the World Economic Forum’s trillion trees program only plan on monitoring tree growth for at most two years, which is not long enough to ensure success (Jones, 2021). Another major issue is planting trees in areas they are not suitable for. Destroying mature forests – Some tree planting programs have inadvertently incentivized people to clear mature forests to make way for new trees. For example, Sembrando Vida, a tree planting program in Mexico, may be responsible for 73,000 hectares of destroyed forests (De Haldevang, 2021). Clearing old forests to make room for new forests is an issue because it can take many years before the new forests hold as much carbon as the old forests (Di Sacco et al., 2021) Leakage – Planting trees on former agricultural land can be problematic if it compels farmers to clear existing forests to meet their land needs. For example, Grain-for-Green, a Chinese government tree planting program, increased tree cover by 32 percent but decreased native forests by 6.6 percent (Hua et al., 2018). Adverse effects on climate change – Site selection is essential because, in some places, trees may cause warming because of their impact on albedo. Additionally, programs that plant trees in peatlands are potentially problematic because the carbon stored in the exposed peat will oxidize and enter the atmosphere. Finally, some tree species increase the risk of wildfires, which would counteract carbon gains. Permanence – The land may be degraded or cleared again if the underlying reasons for degradation and deforestation are not addressed. Inadequate reforestation pipeline – Reforestation efforts in the US face labor constraints (Fargione et al., 2021). 8.2.1.2 Natural forest regeneration Under natural forest regeneration, forests regrow with limited human intervention. For example, new trees can grow in a particular area if seeds are blown from adjacent land by the wind or carried by birds or other animals. In addition, people can aid natural forest regeneration by preventing grazing in these areas and removing competing plants. In addition to issues with leakage and permanence, natural forest regeneration faces other tractability challenges. Crucially, natural forest regeneration may not appeal to farmers and other landowners if more financially lucrative options exist. For example, farmers in Costa Rica are paid more to plant tree plantations than to protect land for natural regeneration; tree plantations would earn them $125 per hectare per year, while land protection would only make them $39 per hectare per year (Early, 2021). Additionally, Compared to mass planting, natural forest regeneration is slow because it occurs passively. 8.2.2 Neglectedness 8.2.2.1 Tree planting initiatives Multiple tree planting initiatives aim to restore or plant millions of trees. We describe several large-scale tree planting initiatives in the table below (Khadka, 2022) . We include mass tree planting and natural forest regeneration in this table because we could not find financial data that distinguished between the two activities. Table 3: Large-scale afforestation/reforestation initiatives Although these large-scale programs are a strong signal of interest in tree planting and may suggest a lack of neglectedness, we cannot assume that these pledges will succeed. For example, some countries have made unrealistic commitments to the Bonn Challenge (Fagan et al., 2020). Six of the 62 countries committed to the Bonn Challenge have pledged to restore almost 50 percent or more of their land; Rwanda and Burundi promised to restore over 75 percent of their land. These countries are unlikely to succeed unless they transform their agricultural systems to use less land. 8.2.2.2 Philanthropic spending on tree planting ClimateWorks reports that foundations spent $50M between 2015 and 2020 on carbon dioxide removal, including reforestation and afforestation efforts (Desanlis et al., 2021). However, we do not know how much of this was on trees specifically. Spending on reforestation and afforestation seems to have increased in recent years. For example, the Bezos Earth Fund has pledged to spend $1B on tree planting and restoration initiatives (Calma, 2021). 9 Appendix C: Improved forest management, fire management, and agroforestry 9.1 Improved forest management 9.1.1 Tractability Studies have found that IFM may have mixed effects on emissions. For example, some researchers have concluded that the amount of forest carbon that is lost from tree harvesting could exceed the combined (1) amount of carbon that is stored in the harvested wood products and (2) amount of emissions avoided by using wood instead of other fuels (Seppälä et al., 2019; Soimakallio et al., 2016). Meanwhile, other studies have indicated that increased investments in forest management can increase both carbon stocks and the amount of wood (Cowie et al., 2021; Schulze et al., 2020). IFM also faces logistical challenges related to developing a skilled labor force, and there is a risk of leakage. 9.1.2 Neglectedness Improved forest management overlaps with international development. Indeed, UN FAO provides countries with policy advice, technical support, and capacity-building related to sustainable forestry. However, it is unclear how much money UN FAO invests into improved forest management. Rainforest Alliance is a major organization whose activities include training people to harvest trees sustainably. Its total revenue in 2020 was about $52M (Rainforest Alliance Inc., 2021). This money was not limited to just improved forest management. 9.2 Fire management 9.2.1 Tractability The degree to which prescribed fires are beneficial depends on how much carbon the prescribed fire emits and how much carbon loss it helps avoid by reducing subsequent uncontrolled fires (Bowman et al., 2021). Currently, the impacts of prescribed fires in forests on carbon emissions are inconclusive (Nabuurs et al., 2022). However, the effects of prescribed fires on savannahs and grasslands are generally positive. Fire management practices such as controlled burns face challenges from residents and bureaucratic hurdles. It also needs sufficient resources and labor and requires location-specific research. 9.2.2 Neglectedness The Nature Conservancy is one of the largest organizations working on fire issues. Its revenue in 2019 was almost $1B, but it did not spend all of this on fire management (Nature Conservancy, 2020). There have been grassroots efforts in the US that advocate for improved fire management, such as Prescribed Burns Associations (PBAs). However, it is unclear how many PBAs there are and whether they are well-funded. 9.3 Agroforestry 9.3.1 Tractability The IPCC notes several contextual factors that help determine the success of agroforestry projects: “water availability, soil fertility, seed and germplasm access, land policies and tenure systems affecting farmer agency, access to credit, and information regarding the optimum species for a given location” (Nabuurs et al., 2022). Additionally, farmers are probably more willing to participate when they have access to developed markets for agroforestry products. 9.3.2 Neglectedness Agroforestry receives funding from organizations and governments working on international development. For example, the UN FAO works on agroforestry because it can help address issues related to food security in low-income countries (FAO, 2022), and BMGF has previously funded agroforestry efforts (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2022). World Agroforestry, an international nongovernmental organization, is one of the largest groups working on agroforestry. Its revenue in 2020 was $45M (World Agroforestry, 2020). 10 Appendix D: Spending on forestry interventions This list of philanthropic spending on forestry interventions is not comprehensive and is intended to give a sense of where donors direct their money. For more information, please see our Google Spreadsheet . Table 4: Philanthropic spending on interventions We summarize the annual revenues of various organizations working on forestry interventions in Table 5. Some of these organizations work in multiple areas, so the listed annual revenue may not match how much they spend on that particular intervention. Table 5: Budgets of example organizations 11 Appendix E: Co-benefits 11.1 Reducing deforestation and forest degradation Conservation-based efforts tend to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem services more effectively and inexpensively than planting new trees. However, some measures to reduce deforestation and forest degradation can cause harm. For example, PAs have historically taken land away from Indigenous peoples and other people who depend on the forest and its resources. There have also been human rights violations related to conservation, such as violence and death at the hands of park rangers (Baker, 2019). Efforts to reduce deforestation and forest degradation also reduce the land available for agricultural land expansion, affecting food access. Finally, some initiatives could increase people’s dependence on insecure external funding (Nabuurs et al., 2022). 11.2 Afforestation, reforestation, and forest ecosystem restoration When implemented well, tree planting projects can benefit the environment and people. For example, tree planting enhances biodiversity and provides people with renewable resources, income, and livelihoods. It may also address land degradation and desertification issues because tree roots can help reduce runoff and erosion. Forests also help regulate the water cycle and help with climate change adaptation (Ellison et al., 2017; Locatelli et al., 2015). However, tree planting can have adverse effects under some circumstances. For example, planting non-native species and monocultures can adversely affect biodiversity and the local ecosystem. 11.3 Improved forest management Some IFM practices can improve biodiversity and water quality. For example, increased tree diversity could support a greater variety of organisms, and increased time between harvests could reduce erosion. However, strategies that solely focus on increasing biomass stock, such as tree plantations, can negatively impact biodiversity. 11.4 Fire management Controlled burns reduce air pollution relative to what we would expect from larger, uncontrolled fires. Additionally, eliminating the dead brush through controlled burns could increase biodiversity by inhibiting the growth of certain species while also increasing nutrients in the soil (Hurteau & Brooks, 2011). Also, when fire management prevents burns from spreading to inhabited or cultivated areas, it benefits people who would otherwise be displaced or have their livelihoods affected by the fires. 11.5 Agroforestry Co-benefits of agroforestry include potentially improved biodiversity, reduced erosion, and increased land productivity. In addition, the trees could help diversify the farmers’ livelihoods if they provide fruit or timber for harvesting. However, agroforestry could reduce biodiversity if farmers plant trees as a monoculture. 12 Works cited Alix-Garcia, J., & Gibbs, H. K. (2017). Forest conservation effects of Brazil’s zero deforestation cattle agreements undermined by leakage. 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Cash for carbon: A randomized trial of payments for ecosystem services to reduce deforestation. Science , 357 (6348), 267–273. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aan0568 Jones, B. (2021, September 22). The surprising downsides to planting trillions of trees . Vox. https://www.vox.com/down-to-earth/22679378/tree-planting-forest-restoration-climate-solutions Joppa, L. N., & Pfaff, A. (2009). High and Far: Biases in the Location of Protected Areas. PLOS ONE , 4 (12), e8273. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0008273 Joshi, S. (2018, November 25). Why we have over-rated Cool Earth—EA Forum . EA Forum. https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/RnmZ62kuuC8XzeTBq/why-we-have-over-rated-cool-earth#3__Reasons_to_doubt_Cool_Earth_s_impact Khadka, N. S. (2022, May 2). How phantom forests are used for greenwashing. BBC News . https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-61300708 Lambin, E. F., Gibbs, H. K., Heilmayr, R., Carlson, K. M., Fleck, L. C., Garrett, R. D., le Polain de Waroux, Y., McDermott, C. L., McLaughlin, D., Newton, P., Nolte, C., Pacheco, P., Rausch, L. L., Streck, C., Thorlakson, T., & Walker, N. F. (2018). The role of supply-chain initiatives in reducing deforestation. Nature Climate Change , 8 (2), 109–116. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-017-0061-1 Living Carbon Team, Tao, Y., Chiu, L.-W., Hoyle, J. W., Du, J., Rasmussen, K., Mellor, P., Richey, C., Kuiper, J., Fried, M., Dewhirst, R. A., Tucker, D., Crites, A., Orr, G. A., Heckert, M. J., Vidal, D. G., Orosco-Cardenas, M. L., & Hall, M. E. (2022). Enhanced photosynthetic efficiency for increased carbon assimilation and woody biomass production in hybrid poplar INRA 717-1B4 (p. 2022.02.16.480797). bioRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.02.16.480797 Locatelli, B., Catterall, C. P., Imbach, P., Kumar, C., Lasco, R., Marín-Spiotta, E., Mercer, B., Powers, J. S., Schwartz, N., & Uriarte, M. (2015). Tropical reforestation and climate change: Beyond carbon. Restoration Ecology , 23 (4), 337–343. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12209 Lund, J. F., Balooni, K., & Casse, T. (2009). Change We can Believe in? Reviewing Studies on the Conservation Impact of Popular Participation in Forest Management. Conservation and Society , 7 (2), 71–82. Mascia, M. B., & Pailler, S. (2011). Protected area downgrading, downsizing, and degazettement (PADDD) and its conservation implications. Conservation Letters , 4 (1), 9–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2010.00147.x Nabuurs, G.-J., Mrabet, R., Abu Hatab, A., Bustamante, M., Clark, H., Havlík, P., House, J., Mbow, C., Ninan, K. N., Popp, A., Roe, S., Sohngen, B., & Towprayoon, S. (2022). 2022: Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Uses (AFOLU). In IPCC, 2022: Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change . Cambridge University Press. Nature Conservancy. (2020). 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Effectiveness of Community Forest Management at reducing deforestation in Madagascar. Biological Conservation , 184 , 271–277. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2015.01.027 Reynolds, M. (2022, March 28). A Bold Idea to Stall the Climate Crisis—By Building Better Trees. Wired UK . https://www.wired.co.uk/article/trees-carbon-capture-genes Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021a). Drivers of Deforestation. Our World in Data . https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation Ritchie, H., & Roser, M. (2021b). Forests and Deforestation. Our World in Data . https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation Robinson, B. E., Holland, M. B., & Naughton-Treves, L. (2014). Does secure land tenure save forests? A meta-analysis of the relationship between land tenure and tropical deforestation. Global Environmental Change , 29 , 281–293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2013.05.012 Schulze, K., Malek, Ž., & Verburg, P. H. (2020). The Impact of Accounting for Future Wood Production in Global Vertebrate Biodiversity Assessments. Environmental Management , 66 (3), 460–475. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-020-01322-4 Scullion, J. J., Vogt, K. A., Drahota, B., Winkler-Schor, S., & Lyons, M. (2019). Conserving the Last Great Forests: A Meta-Analysis Review of the Drivers of Intact Forest Loss and the Strategies and Policies to Save Them. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change , 2 . https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/ffgc.2019.00062 Seppälä, J., Heinonen, T., Pukkala, T., Kilpeläinen, A., Mattila, T., Myllyviita, T., Asikainen, A., & Peltola, H. (2019). Effect of increased wood harvesting and utilization on required greenhouse gas displacement factors of wood-based products and fuels. Journal of Environmental Management , 247 , 580–587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2019.06.031 Soimakallio, S., Saikku, L., Valsta, L., & Pingoud, K. (2016). Climate Change Mitigation Challenge for Wood Utilization—The Case of Finland. Environmental Science & Technology , 50 (10), 5127–5134. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00122 Sze, J. S., Carrasco, L. R., Childs, D., & Edwards, D. P. (2022). Reduced deforestation and degradation in Indigenous Lands pan-tropically. Nature Sustainability , 5 (2), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00815-2 The World Bank. (2016, March 20). Empower Forest Communities . The World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/forests/brief/empower-forest-communities USAID. (2021, July 12). Securing Land Tenure and Property Rights for Stability and Prosperity . USAID. https://www.usaid.gov/land-tenure van der Ven, H., & Cashore, B. (2018). Forest certification: The challenge of measuring impacts. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability , 32 , 104–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2018.06.001 Venter, O., Magrach, A., Outram, N., Klein, C. J., Possingham, H. P., Di Marco, M., & Watson, J. E. M. 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World Agroforestry, Audited Financial Statements 2020 . World Agroforestry. https://www.worldagroforestry.org/sites/agroforestry/files/2021-06/ICRAF%20Financial%20Statements_2020.pdf World Wildlife Fund Inc. (2021). World Wildlife Fund Inc. Form 990 for period ending June 2020 . https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/display_990/521693387/download990pdf_03_2022_prefixes_47-54%2F521693387_202006_990_2022032319804714 Wunder, S. (2005). Payments for environmental services: Some nuts and bolts (CIFOR Occasional Paper No. 42). Center for International Forestry Research. https://www.cifor.org/publications/pdf_files/OccPapers/OP-42.pdf Endnotes [1] In addition to absorbing and releasing CO2, trees release various other gases and chemicals that impact heating and cooling in complex ways (e.g., water vapor, isoprene, methane). Research into the different chemicals and gases that trees release and their impact on climate is an emerging area. [2] Technical mitigation potential refers to the amount of CO2-equivalent that can be mitigated based on current technology. It seems unlikely that technological progress between 2020 and 2050 will drastically change most interventions’ technical mitigation potentials. [3] Economic mitigation potential is the amount that can be mitigated based on current technology at a maximum cost of $100 ton per CO2-equivalent. [4] The IPCC’s Agriculture, Forestry, and Other land-use solutions have an extensive range of potential mitigation values because “current carbon stocks and fluxes are unclear and subject to temporal variability” (Nabuurs et al., 2022). [5] Agricultural development includes increased productivity, as well as other efforts including improvements to the supply chain. Attributing all of this funding to increased crop productivity overestimates BMGF’s support for increased productivity. [6] The top five countries with the greatest relative spending on agriculture are Malawi (18 percent), Mali (12.4 percent), Bhutan (12 percent), Guyana (10.3 percent), and China (9.6 percent). [7] The Plant Based Foods Institute is the nonprofit arm of the Plant Based Foods Association. [8] The Plant Based Foods Association has a budget of $2.3M in 2022. The Plant Based Food Association can fund the Plant Based Foods Institute, but not vice versa. [9] In total, about $14.2B in VC has been raised since 2011 to support almost 500 startups in producing AP products [10] Although the beef moratorium in Brazil has faced challenges, the country’s soy moratorium has been more successful in reducing deforestation. After Brazil’s soy moratorium was signed in July 2006 by major soybean traders, only a small amount of land used for soy expansion was in newly deforested areas (Gibbs et al., 2015). [11] We estimated that Evergreen Collaborative and Carbon180 had cost-effectiveness values of $0.54 per metric ton of CO2 and $0.66 per metric ton of CO2, respectively for their realistic scenarios.

Project Innerspace: Deep Dive // BACK Forthcoming November 2024. Please stay tuned! In the meantime, you can always reach out to us with any questions about our evaluation of Project InnerSpace or otherwise.

Future Cleantech Architects: Deep Dive // BACK Forthcoming November 2024. Please stay tuned! In the meantime, you can always reach out to us at givinggreen [at] idinsight [dot] org with any questions about our evaluation of FCA or otherwise.

Solutions For Our Climate // BACK Overview The Giving Green Fund plans to award a restricted grant to Solutions for Our Climate (SFOC) for its work to decarbonize heavy industry. SFOC is a research and advocacy organization based in South Korea that works to align policy, business, and finance activities with international climate targets. Our grant to SFOC falls into our philanthropic strategy for decarbonizing heavy industry. Please see Giving Green’s deep dive report on decarbonizing heavy industry for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties. Last updated: October 2024 What is Solutions for Our Climate? SFOC was established in 2016 in South Korea to advocate for governments and corporations to take evidence-based climate action with an initial focus on decarbonizing the power sector. It has grown exponentially and now drives reductions across South Korea’s largest sources of emissions, including industry, transport, and land use change. SFOC’s core activities include technical research, litigation, community organizing, and policy advocacy. SFOC also fulfills an important role as a thought leader for climate action in South Korea, with frequent broadcast and print media collaborations. It is expanding its international presence through multilateral convenings and its on-the-ground team members in Japan, and Thailand. What are we funding at SFOC, and how could it help reduce greenhouse gas emissions? Heavy industry accounts for around one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions, and Asia is the largest manufacturing region in the world. We think both technological progress and an enabling policy environment are needed to incentivize manufacturers to shift to low-carbon production methods. We are giving a restricted grant that can be used flexibly across SFOC’s industry programs: Steel : SFOC’s steel program advocates for the government, producers, and consumers to work towards steel carbon neutrality by 2040. Its policy work blends government advocacy and education; its target policies include an updated low-carbon steel strategy, financing for green hydrogen RD&D, and more ambitious industry-specific Nationally Determined Contributions working towards the Paris Agreement. Its producer advocacy work campaigns against the repair and upgrade of coal-based blast furnaces and challenges greenwashing claims. Its consumer work advocates for steel-consuming industries, like auto manufacturers, to set green procurement commitments. Petrochemicals: SFOC’s petrochemicals program started in 2024. Its initial strategy is to advocate for the government to increase the stringency of petrochemical regulations, and for corporations to set Scope 3 emissions reduction targets and publish decarbonization roadmaps. Why do we think SFOC will use this funding well? We have been impressed by SFOC’s climate advocacy leadership and its strong track record. In the power sector, SFOC started a coalition of organizations that campaigned for South Korea’s commitment to end overseas coal finance, with subsequent commitments following this in Japan and China. SFOC also participated in campaigns to prevent the building of 3,700 MW of new coal power plants and expedite the retirement of 8,000 MW of coal power plants. We think philanthropic funding for industrial decarbonization is especially neglected in Asia, and therefore, we are excited to support SFOC’s efforts in the field. SFOC’s steel program successes included government advocacy leading up to the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy’s request for KRW 880 billion ($638 million) to commercialize green steel technology and successful litigation against the greenwashing claims of South Korea’s largest steel company. We believe SFOC will be able to replicate previous levels of success in its nascent petrochemicals program. For more on the difference between the grantees of the Giving Green Fund and our Top Nonprofits, please see this blog post on the Giving Green Fund. This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Grid Renewable Energy // BACK This report was last updated in November 2020. It may no longer be accurate, both with respect to the evidence it presents and our assessment of the evidence. We may revise this report in the future, depending on our research capacity and research priorities. Questions and comments are welcome. Summary Adding renewable energy capacity to the electricity grid is a critical part of the energy transition and almost certainly contributes to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. However, it is very difficult to prove the additionality of renewable energy offsets, since many projects would be built regardless of their ability to sell carbon credits. Since renewable energy projects are frequently large and complex, project developers can’t rely on the uncertain voluntary offset market to justify new projects. Projects likely to be additional are ones in locations where renewable energy is unprofitable and not mandatory, where offsets provide a large proportion of the funding, and where the developer is continuing to develop new projects. Giving Green has done an initial assessment of many renewable energy offsets sold directly to consumers, and we have not found any that meet our criteria. Therefore, we do not recommend any renewable energy offsets at this time. However, we are continuing to assess the market for renewable energy offsets that we can recommend, as we believe that some grid renewable energy offsets are likely additional. Grid renewable energy as a carbon offset Decarbonizing the power grid is a key part of the energy transition, so electricity production is a natural place donors look to support. Investing directly into building new plants is unattainable for most climate-conscious consumers, but instead, they can support these projects through purchasing offsets. Offsets for the renewable energy field are a bit more complex than other types of offsets, as there are many different types of credit available. There are at least 5 major players in the field and each NGO has its own name/acronym to refer to offset credit [1]. To make matters even more confusing, some credits do not actually claim to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs). In this report, we try our best to demystify this complex field. We will focus on the terminology used by Gold Standard for this review since they are one of the more respected certifiers in the field. There are two types of offset instruments for renewable energy: Renewable Energy Credits (REC) and Verified Emission Reductions (VER). “[RECs] are tradable, non-tangible energy commodities that represent proof that 1 megawatt-hour (MWh) of electricity was generated from an eligible renewable energy resource ( renewable electricity ) and was fed into the shared system of power lines which transport energy” [2]. By purchasing RECs, consumers can claim to contribute a “direct and quantifiable impact on increasing the share of renewable energy in the global energy mix” [3]. They are sold on renewable energy markets. RECs do not require demonstration of additionality, and therefore are not meant to equate to a reduction in emissions. Verified Emission Reductions (VER), in contrast, go through a more robust verification process that seeks to verify additionality, and therefore guarantee reduction in GHG emissions. Since the focus of our review is to find instruments that cause reduction in emissions, we will be focusing on VERs. Theoretically, this market is a win-win-win situation: creators of renewable energy projects can fundraise money for their investments, consumers of VERs get to claim reduction in emissions, and active steps are taken towards reduction in GHG emissions. But do investments into VERs actually cause reduction of GHGs? Let’s take a closer look at the certification process and how complex it can become. Causality Adding renewable energy to the grid will reduce GHGs if it is replacing generation (either current or planned) that would have taken place using fossil fuels. This is likely true in most circumstances, since fossil energy is the most common source of grid generation. However, this might vary based on the circumstance. For instance, if renewable energy is used to replace nuclear energy (which may happen in countries that are phasing out nuclear power), then the renewable energy may not actually have an effect on GHGs. Overall, it is important to know the dynamics of the specific electricity market to understand causality of renewable grid energy projects. Project-level additionality A grid electricity project satisfies project-level additionality if it only would have been developed due to the ability to sell VERs. Depending on the specifics of the local power market, this assumption may or may not hold for a number of reasons. First, renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar are becoming comparable in cost to fossil fuel generation of power without the sales of VERs [4], making investments into renewable energy a potentially attractive option in the absence of carbon offset markets. In places where they are not profitable on their own, they are frequently supported by government subsidies that attract project developers. So VERs may not be a strong factor in a project developer’s decision to invest or not invest into renewable energy (Broekhoff et al. 2019). This may not hold in all places: region-specific assessments for energy generation profitability may improve one’s ability to determine additionality more accurately. For example, Cames et al. 2016 highlight that additionality is unlikely to hold in India due to high profitability of on-shore wind generation. Second, the problem lies in the market itself. Once projects receive certified VERs, they need to sell them in order to realize any value. Project developers who sell their VERs on voluntary markets cannot be sure that anyone will buy them. Also, prices are driven by market forces, so project developers will be unsure about future revenues from offsets even if they are purchased. This creates uncertainty in the revenue stream for investors. Anticipating high unpredictability of fundraising on the voluntary market makes potential project developers heavily discount the outcomes from the market, and hedge against the volatility by relying on different sources of funding. One potential solution to this is to secure the purchase of the VER prior to implementation through emission reduction purchase agreements, or ERPAs (Broekhoff et al. 2019). Offsets purchased as part of ERPAs, therefore, have a higher chance of being additional, but these are generally not purchasable in small quantities by individuals. Timing is a critical issue. VERs are only issued by certifying agencies after a plant is up and running. Therefore, in a very literal sense buying VERs that are not part of an ERPA cannot possibly cause a project to be executed. It arguably makes sense to take a wider view of causality: by creating demand for VERs through the purchase of an offset, you can spur future projects that rely on offset sales to be profitable. If projects are being developed due to the belief that the project developers will be able to sell VERs in the future, they need to see active demand in the VER market. Therefore, by buying VERs for a past project, you may cause future projects to be developed. There is a much more direct link if the organization selling the VERs is continuing to develop more renewable energy projects, and can use the income from offsets to fuel these new investments. Another problem is that the voluntary markets cover only a small fraction of total costs, which further demonstrates that VERs may not alter the decisions of investors (Gillenwater 2008). In the case of the Belen plant, generated VER revenue per year is projected to be 584,010 euros per year, or about 10% of yearly revenue from electricity sales. While this is not a trivial amount, it is unclear if this was really enough to swing the initial investment decision. Marginal additionality Marginal additionality is achieved if each offset/VER sale can lead to additional GHG removal. Renewable energy generation projects are large, capital-intensive projects. They tend to have high up-front costs, and then relatively low operational costs that should be easily covered by electricity sales. Therefore, VER income is generally not necessary to keep projects running once they are already built. Also, in most cases, a developer is managing just one project. This means that if they receive VER income above their capital and operations cost for the project, it will likely go towards profits as opposed to developing additional renewable energy projects. This means that at some point, VERs will not have any effect on emissions. Overall, we believe the marginal additionality for renewable electricity plants is likely to be low, even if project-level is satisfied. Permanence When polluting electricity is replaced by clean energy, this permanently avoids emissions. Therefore, there is no concern about permanence in renewable energy projects. Co-benefits Fossil energy plants can cause air and water pollution, which has detrimental effects on human health and natural ecosystems. If renewable energy plants cause fossil fuel plants to go offline (or not be built), then it can achieve these co-benefits. However, these can be difficult to measure because it’s difficult to know the exact health and environmental counterfactual. Overall, we believe that renewable energy plants likely do have some co-benefits, though they are difficult to quantify. Assessment of grid renewable energy projects In summary, while we acknowledge that adding renewable energy to the grid is a key part of the energy transition, we believe that it is very difficult to verify the additionality of renewable energy offsets. Therefore, it is difficult to find reliable offsets. Offsets are more likely to be additional for projects with the following characteristics: They are in a context wherein increase in renewable energy is not required by mandates. They are in a context where renewable energy projects are unlikely to be profitable, even after taking into account government subsidies Offset revenue makes up a large proportion of a project’s revenue. The project developer is continuing to develop more renewable energy projects. Giving Green has done an initial assessment of many renewable energy offsets sold directly to consumers, and have not found any projects in which we are confident that they meet the above criteria. Therefore, we do not recommend any renewable energy offsets at this time. However, we are continuing to assess the market for renewable energy offsets that we can recommend, as we believe that some offsets are likely additional. [1] Table 1 in http://www.offsetguide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/11.15.19.pdf [2] https://www.goldstandard.org/articles/gold-standard-renewable-energy-labels [3] https://www.goldstandard.org/impact-quantification/renewable-energy-markets [4] US energy information administration compares costs electricity generation, concluding that, on average pre-tax costs of operating/building a wind plant are comparable with non-green technologies ( link ). References Gillenwater, Michael. "Redefining RECs—part 1: untangling attributes and offsets." Energy Policy 36, no. 6 (2008): 2109-2119. Gillenwater, Michael. "Redefining RECs—Part 2: Untangling certificates and emission markets." Energy Policy 36, no. 6 (2008): 2120-2129. Gillenwater, Michael. "Probabilistic decision model of wind power investment and influence of green power market." Energy Policy 63 (2013): 1111-1125. Broekhoff, Derik Gillenwater, Michael Colbert-Sangree, Tani Cage, Patrick “Securing Climate Benefit: A Guide to Using Carbon Offsets”, November 2019, http://www.offsetguide.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/11.15.19.pdf Levelized Cost and Levelized Avoided Cost of New Generation Resources in the Annual Energy Outlook 2018 https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/archive/aeo18/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf Cames, Martin, Ralph O. Harthan, Jürg Füssler, Michael Lazarus, Carrie M. Lee, Peter Erickson, and Randall Spalding-Fecher. "How additional is the clean development mechanism." Analysis of the application of current tools and proposed alternatives (2016). https://ec.europa.eu/clima/system/files/2017-04/clean_dev_mechanism_en.pdf

Good Food Institute: Recommendation // BACK Good Food Institute: Recommendation Last updated in November 2024. The Good Food Institute (GFI) promotes alternatives to conventional livestock products through science, policy, and corporate engagement workstreams. GFI is one of the top climate nonprofits selected by Giving Green in 2024. Livestock emissions are the largest source of food system emissions and are only expected to grow in the coming decades. We think shifting demand from emissions-intensive conventional livestock products to alternative proteins, such as plant-based and cultivated meat, is one of the most promising pathways to decrease emissions from agriculture and land use. According to our theory of change, GFI's work to make alternative proteins as delicious and affordable as meat could reduce meat consumption and help people follow a more climate-friendly diet. We recommend GFI because of its successful track record, breadth of expertise, and strategic approach. We think GFI plays a unique and important role in promoting alternative proteins and that its work could reduce demand for conventional meat. We also believe GFI has substantial room to grow in its three programmatic areas and across its regional offices. Since alternative protein production is still in its early stages, we plan to continue to monitor alternative protein development and look forward to following GFI’s efforts in this space. We previously recommended GFI in 2022 and 2023. For more information, see our deep dive research report , a summary below, and our more comprehensive food sector report . What is the Good Food Institute? GFI is a nonprofit that seeks to make alternative proteins competitive with conventional proteins in terms of taste and price. Launched in 2016, GFI is headquartered in the US and has independent affiliate offices in the Asia Pacific region (based in Singapore), Brazil, Europe, India, Japan, and Israel. How could GFI help address climate change? Livestock emissions include direct emissions from livestock, such as methane release from cows, and indirect emissions, such as those caused by deforestation. Reducing livestock production is an important lever for driving down emissions and freeing up land that could be used for carbon sequestration activities. We think that making alternative proteins equal to or better than conventional meat could make them the default choice for more consumers, resulting in fewer food system emissions. What does GFI do? GFI has three focus areas: science, policy, and industry. Its science-focused activities include identifying research gaps, regranting to and advocating for open-access research, and convening scientists. Its policy workstream includes advocating for increased government funding for alternative protein research and development, campaigning for fair-label laws, challenging cultivated meat bans, and establishing a clear path to market for cultivated meat. Its industry work includes supporting smaller alternative protein startups and building relationships with large agri-food companies to encourage them to invest in alternative protein products. What’s new at GFI in 2024? GFI added significant wins to its track record in 2024. Highlights include its partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund to unlock $100 million of funding for three global alternative protein research centers, engagement with Singapore’s Islamic council on the first-ever authoritative ruling that cultivated meat can be halal, and opening GFI’s newest office in Japan. Its ongoing work includes continued wins unlocking millions of dollars of public funding for alternative protein innovation, securing support for alternative proteins as national priorities, and challenging several cultivated meat bans in Europe and the US. What would GFI do with your donation? GFI is currently fundraising for its three-year goal of $125 million. GFI would use this funding to maintain core operations across its seven global organizations and expand internationally, including its recent launch of GFI Japan and plans for building GFI Korea. Why is Giving Green excited about GFI? We think GFI continues to be a powerhouse in alternative protein thought leadership and action. It has strong ties to government, industry, and research organizations and continues to achieve impressive wins. We believe donations to GFI can help stimulate systemic change that reduces food system emissions on a global scale. Explore ways to give to Good Food Institute and more. GFI has 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) entities. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight, which is itself a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we are only offering an opinion on the charitable activities of GFI’s 501(c)(3) arm, and not on GFI’s 501(c)(4) entity. This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Evergreen Collaborative // BACK Overview The Giving Green Fund plans to award a restricted grant to Evergreen Collaborative, a US-based, climate policy advocacy group. This is one of a series of grants to support an ecosystem of nonprofits working to expand and decarbonize domestic industrial production through increased public and private investment and trade policy that favors cleaner industrial material imports. While most of Evergreen Collaborative’s work is focused on US stakeholders, markets, and policies, we think that these efforts, when combined with trade policies such as a carbon border adjustment mechanism, can have a global impact. This falls within our philanthropic strategy of decarbonizing heavy industry. Please see Giving Green’s deep dive report for more information, including risks and potential co-benefits, recommended sub-strategies, theory of change, funding need, and key uncertainties. Last updated: October 2024 What is Evergreen Collaborative? Evergreen Collaborative is a US-based climate policy advocacy group that was founded by former staffers of Washington State Governor Jay Inslee’s 2020 presidential campaign. Since its founding, Evergreen has focused its efforts on supporting policies that aim to power the economy with 100% clean energy, invest in jobs, support environmental justice, transition the US from fossil fuels, and influence US leadership to confront climate change. Building on its strong track record of influencing federal legislation such as the Inflation Reduction Act, Evergreen has expanded its advocacy efforts to federal regulatory agencies and state policy. Why are we funding Evergreen Collaborative, and how could it help reduce emissions? Evergreen Collaborative is building its work on industrial decarbonization, leveraging its expertise and experience to target key policy, legal, and regulatory mechanisms. We think this multi-faceted approach could be highly effective in decarbonizing heavy industry production in the US. Its ongoing and future work includes: Promoting robust and equitable trade policy : Evergreen Collaborative is supporting legislative efforts toward a carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM), a tax on imports based on carbon intensity intended to increase the competitiveness of clean, domestic industrial production and incentivize decarbonization internationally. Evergreen Collaborative emphasizes the need to complement trade policy with initiatives to protect LMICS, such as strong international finance commitments, robust technology transfer, and exemptions for least developing countries and small island developing states. Pushing for increased environmental regulations and enforcement : Through the Clean Air Act, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can regulate air pollution from industrial sources. Evergreen Collaborative is bringing attention to the fact that EPA has not updated its rules for decades and is pushing the agency to take specific action on updating New Source Performance Standards to include greenhouse gas emissions. Advancing market shaping efforts : The Buy Clean initiative, a federal procurement effort for low-carbon materials such as steel, cement, asphalt, and glass, includes commitments from 12 leading states. Evergreen Collaborative is working to expand and strengthen state programs to amplify the effectiveness of these federal-state partnerships. In addition, Evergreen Collaborative is advocating for a federal advance market commitment that may be more suitable than procurement for emerging clean technologies and materials. Advocating for new and increased federal funding for industrial decarbonization: Evergreen Collaborative advocates for increased funding for existing programs such as the Department of Energy’s Industrial Demonstration Program and the Buy Clean initiative mentioned above. In addition, Evergreen Collaborative is promoting the adoption of a performance tax credit to subsidize clean industrial products such as low-carbon cement and steel. Why do we think Evergreen Collaborative will use this funding well? We think Evergreen Collaborative’s strong track record, legal and policy expertise, network, and partnerships will enable it to effectively drive critical industrial decarbonization efforts domestically that could have a significant impact beyond US borders. For more on the difference between the grantees of the Giving Green Fund and our Top Nonprofits, please see this blog post on the Giving Green Fund. Evergreen has 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) entities. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight, which is itself a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we are only offering an opinion on the charitable activities of its 501(c)(3) arm, Evergreen Collaborative, and not on its 501(c)(4) entity, Evergreen Action. This is a nonpartisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Biochar // BACK Please see our most updated research on biochar at this new link.