Search Results

About Giving Green We make high-impact climate giving easier, for everyone. OUR VALUES OUR TEAM ADVISORS FUNDERS What can I do about climate change? We had the same question. So we created Giving Green. Giving Green is a guide for individuals and businesses to make more effective climate giving decisions. We perform rigorous research and recommend highly effective climate initiatives, so you can give with confidence. Giving Green is incubated at IDinsight , a global advisory, data analytics, and research organization that uses data and evidence to improve lives worldwide. We are also inspired by the principles of effective altruism , which seek to find ways of doing good that actually work. We bring IDinsight’s deep expertise and effective altruism’s research rigor to everything we do. Our work is funded by generous climate donors like you who believe in high-impact climate action and evidence-based climate giving advice. We receive no funding from and have no formal relationship with any of the organizations we study or recommend. If you share our mission, please consider donating to Giving Green directly . We also provide consulting services to individuals and organizations that want to give more effectively to fight climate change. Learn more about how we create bespoke climate giving recommendations here . OUR VALUES Vaues To guide our search for effective climate projects, we strive to uphold four values. These are our commitments to teammates, supporters, and the planet. 1. Truth-seeking We ask challenging questions and perform rigorous research, guided by evidence and reason. 2. Humility We value different perspectives and acknowledge our own limitations. 3. Transparency We share research and deliberations publicly to encourage dialogue. 4. Collaboration We foster catalytic partnerships to amplify climate actions and maximize impact. Our Team OUR TEAM Dr. Dan Stein Dan Stein is Giving Green's founder and director and the Chief Economist at IDinsight. Dan is passionate about using evidence-based approaches to fight the cli mate crisis. Prior to IDinsight, Dan worked as an Economist at the World Bank, where he launched a program of impact evaluations in energy and environment. Dan holds a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Physics and Political Economy from UC Berkeley. Emily Thai Emily Thai is Giving Green's Chief of Staff. Prior to joining Giving Green, Emily worked at the University of Chicago’s Center for RISC, managing behavioral science consultancies for social impact, and at Rhapsody Venture Partners, investing in sustainable technology. Emily holds bachelor’s degrees in Materials Science and Engineering and Women’s and Gender Studies from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Enzia Schnyder Enzia Schnyder is a Research Associate at Giving Green. Prior to joining Giving Green, Enzia worked in research at the International Renewable Energy Agency, the UK Department for Environmental and Rural Affairs and an alternative protein start-up. She holds an MEng in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford and a Postgraduate Diploma from the University of Nottingham, where she studied the use of microbes to produce alternative proteins made from carbon dioxide. Jack Rafferty Jack Rafferty is the Manager of Climate Giving for Giving Green Australia. Prior to joining Giving Green, Jack was the Co-founder and Director of Lead Exposure Elimination Project, a policy focused international NGO that is working to end childhood lead poisoning worldwide. Jack holds bachelor’s degrees in Environmental Science and Philosophy from the University of Sydney. Jackie Ciraldo Jackie Ciraldo is Giving Green’s Communications and Development Officer. Prior to Giving Green, Jackie worked at Elle Communications and DEY. Ideas + Influence where she drove a wide range of impact-driven communications strategies for influential individuals, nonprofits, philanthropies, advocacy campaigns, businesses, and brands spanning environmental justice, climate solutions, impact investing, global health, worker rights and protections, democracy, and more. Before shifting gears to more mission-driven communications, Jackie got her start in travel and hospitality public relations at Hawkins International, and spent time as an educator, teaching English in Thailand and then elementary Zoom school during the height of the pandemic. Jackie holds a bachelor’s degree in Public Relations with International Studies and Sociology minors from The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Kimberly Huynh Kimberly Huynh is Giving Green's Associate Director of Research. Prior to joining Giving Green, Kimberly worked as a Content Editor and Summer Research Analyst at GiveWell and conducted environmental fieldwork in Canada, New Zealand, Chile, and the United States. Her PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley focused on estimating methane emissions from wetlands. She earned both a M.S. in Mechanical Engineering & a B.S. in Environmental Engineering from Northwestern University. Dr. Lucia Simonelli Lucia is a Senior Researcher for Giving Green. Prior to joining Giving Green, Lucia was a Senior Policy Fellow at Carbon180 where she specialized in federal policy for direct air capture (DAC) and other carbon removal pathways. She also served as a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow in the Office of Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, working on climate initiatives and learning about the legislative process. Before pivoting to policy, Lucia was a postdoc in mathematics at the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy. Lucia holds a BSc in mathematics from the University of Texas and PhD in mathematics from the University of Maryland. Sunnie Huang Sunnie Huang is Giving Green's Growth Officer. She began her career as a journalist, first at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in Toronto, then at The Economist in London. After moving to the nonprofit sector, she worked with Generation Pledge to grow the community of ultra-high-net-wealth inheritors who want to do good with their resources. Sunnie holds degrees in journalism and environmental economics. She is passionate about helping impact-oriented organizations grow. ADVISORS Dan Plechaty Dan Plechaty is a Strategist at ClimateWorks. As part of the Global Intelligence team, he provides actionable insights to climate grantmakers through emissions modeling and scenario analyses, coordinates projects on action, accountability and progress tracking, and explores new topics that intersect with existing programmatic grantmaking areas. Dr. Jae Pasari Jae Pasari is the Program Manager for Climate Action at Preston-Werner Ventures. He leads research to identify high leverage climate investment opportunities in non-profit, political, and business spheres. Michelle Levinson Michelle Levinson is a Manager in eMobility at the World Resources Institute. She has over a decade of experience working on US climate policy and electricity markets. Dr. Neil Buddy Shah Neil Buddy Shah is the CEO of the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) and previously the Managing Director of GiveWell. Buddy has a decade-plus track record of taking cutting-edge ideas from academia and industry and applying them to the needs of the social sector. Shu Dar Yao Shu Dar Yao is the Founder of Lucid Capitalism, an advisory firm that educates and guides VC and PE funds and their portfolio companies on ESG issues, including climate change and social inequality. Her career has spanned finance and nonprofit ecosystems; she led the Investment Committee at RSF Social Finance and previously has worked at Social Finance, Citigroup's Inclusive Finance, the World Bank Group's IFC, and JPMorgan. Funders FUNDERS

Research Archive // BACK Below, we list research that no longer fits our current research process and prioritized impact strategies. These reports may no longer be accurate, both with respect to the evidence presented and our assessment of the evidence. We may revise these reports in the future, depending on our research capacity and research priorities, and welcome interest in collaborating on updated evaluations. Questions and comments are welcome. Updates to our research process How We Determined Our 2021 Research Priorities (last updated December 2021) Giving Green's Approach to Policy Change (last updated November 2021) 2022 Updates to Giving Green's Approach and Recommendations (last updated November 2022) Evaluations of impact strategies State Legislative Advocacy (last updated November 2020) Insider Policy Advocacy: Overview (last updated November 2020) Activism: Overview (last updated December 2021) Activism: Cost-Effectiveness Analysis (last updated November 2021) Evaluations of organizations Evergreen Collaborative: Deep Dive (last updated November 2022)

Ozone Depleting Substances // BACK This report was last updated in February 2022. The most up-to-date version of this report was published in November 2022 and covers refrigerant destruction in general , of which ODS destruction is a subset. Summary Certain gases used as refrigerants and foams are classified as “Ozone Depleting Substances”, or ODS. When they enter the atmosphere, these gases can warm the earth at a rate orders of magnitude above carbon dioxide (CO2). Although the production of many of these gases is banned under the Montreal Protocol, large quantities of ODS still exist in appliances or stockpiles. If these gases are not properly disposed of, most will eventually leak or be released into the atmosphere. Organizations can find and destroy these gases, generating emissions credits in the process. We find these offsets to be among the most credible on the market. We currently recommend one ODS-destroying organization, Tradewater , which sells offsets directly from its website. Overview Although CO2 is the most well-known greenhouse gas (GHG), other substances released into the atmosphere by human activity also have warming potential. Some of the most powerful warming gases come from refrigerants and foams and can have up to 10,000 times the warming effect of CO2. These include chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are sometimes found in aerosols, refrigerators, and air conditioners. As many of these substances deplete the ozone layer, they are frequently described as “Ozone Depleting Substances” (ODS). Production of these chemicals is banned under the universally ratified Montreal Protocol, including the Kigali Amendment in 2016. But large quantities still exist, and the use of pre-existing ODS is not banned in most countries. If not destroyed, ODS will continue to leak from appliances and storage containers, entering the atmosphere and adding to warming. Project Drawdown identifies refrigerant management as one of the most promising interventions to reduce warming. In theory, ODS destruction is a good fit for carbon offsetting. ODS destruction has no commercial value, so it is unlikely to occur in the absence of further government regulation, philanthropic donations, or carbon offsets. At this time, plenty of existing ODS still needs to be found and destroyed. Because ODS destruction projects can be ramped up semi-linearly with funding—i.e. they do not require large upfront capital investments but instead utilize a certain amount of funds per unit of ODS destroyed—revenue from selling offsets from a previous project can easily be reinvested in future ODS destruction. Mechanism ODS destruction projects are considered emissions avoidance , as they prevent emissions that would have occurred had the ODS leaked into the atmosphere. Casuality There are a few elements to establishing causality of ODS destruction projects: Conversion of ODS into less harmful substances Establishing the counterfactual of ODS release into the atmosphere Ensuring that destruction of ODS does not lead to more production of harmful gases Accounting for the carbon footprint of the removal activities We tackle each in more detail below. Conversion of ODS into less harmful substances ODS destruction projects reduce GHGs by incinerating the ODS. While measuring the exact amount of gases destroyed is straightforward, converting this into the amount of CO2-equivalent gas removed requires understanding the “global warming potential” (GWP) of both the ODS and the byproducts of ODS incineration. These have been established by the IPCC , who are consistently updating their lists of conversion factors. Depending on the gas being destroyed, incinerating ODS can lead to thousands of times less warming over a hundred years than simply letting the gases escape. Establishing the counterfactual of ODS release into the atmosphere If not destroyed, would ODS have been sequestered indefinitely in canisters and appliances, or would it leak into the atmosphere and cause warming? Even under the best conditions, many ODS storage containers will slowly leak, and improper end-of-life disposal of appliances can result in complete release. Offset certifiers have standard assumptions for leakage over time. For instance, the Verra protocol allows projects to claim 100% of destruction to be additional when ODS are recovered from appliances at their end-of-life; for canisters that could be reused or stored, projects may estimate expected cumulative leakage over ten years and claim that share of destruction as additional. We believe these are reasonably conservative assumptions and accept them for offset projects that we analyze. Ensuring that the destruction of ODS does not lead to more production of harmful gases Finally, we may worry that destroying these gases might cause similar chemicals to be produced to meet the demand for this type of gas, a phenomenon termed “leakage.” Since production of these gases is banned in all countries under the Montreal Protocol, they cannot be reproduced, but they might be replaced with non-banned gases that also have warming effects when released into the atmosphere. This is not a problem with refrigerants captured from end-of-life appliances, but it could be an issue for stockpiled gases. Accounting for the carbon footprint of the removal activities Finding and incinerating ODS can require travel and shipping, which in itself can lead to CO2 emissions. However, these life cycle emissions are generally taken into account by the offset certifier when calculating the total emissions reduced. Project-Level and Marginal Additionality There is no other market for ODS destruction. Additionality is much more straightforward to establish for ODS projects than for other carbon offset sectors. Most countries do not have any regulations on the use and destruction of existing ODS, even if their production is banned under the Montreal Protocol. Since no market exists for the destruction of these gases apart from the carbon offset market, ODS destruction projects have to rely on offsets to survive. Permanence When ODS are destroyed, their contributions to warming are permanently removed. Reversal is not a concern. Co-benefits ODS projects do not generally offer any co-benefits, but preventing ODS from escaping into the atmosphere can prevent damage to the ozone layer. Cost-Effectiveness Giving Green has only found one organization selling ODS destruction offsets to the public, Tradewater. We investigate their cost effectiveness in our recommendation. Assessment of ODS projects We find ODS destruction carbon offsets to be one of the more compelling types of carbon offsets available. We have only found one ODS offset that we recommend, which is provided by Tradewater .

Evergreen Collaborative: Recommendation // BACK Note: This is our recommendation of Evergreen Collaborative as it appeared in November 2022. Evergreen Collaborative was not included in Giving Green’s 2023 list of top climate nonprofit recommendations. That being said, it is our impression that Evergreen Collaborative continues to do strong work and has continued to produce impressive achievements. For donors interested in supporting US policy work, we still believe that Evergreen Collaborative would be an excellent choice. The reason for removing Evergreen Collaborative from our 2023 list derives from a changing political landscape in the US and a shift in research priorities at Giving Green. We first recommended Evergreen Collaborative in 2021, primarily based on the strength of its contributions to federal legislation, during a time when Giving Green felt that there was a unique opportunity to pass federal climate legislation in the US. After the passage of major climate bills in 2021-2022 (IIJA and IRA), the legislative window for climate policy in the US seems to have mostly closed. Therefore, many advocacy groups in the US (including Evergreen Collaborative) have shifted their strategies to center implementation, regulation, and state-level policy. While these are important activities, the landscape is different enough from federal legislation that evaluating effective nonprofits in this context would first require us to conduct new research to assess the general impact strategy. Although we considered conducting this research, our 2023 research prioritization moved us in a different direction, toward advocacy targeting specific sectors and technologies. Given that Evergreen Collaborative’s work does not fall into the impact strategies we prioritized in our 2023 research, we did not fully reassess it. Therefore, it was not included in our list of 2023 top climate nonprofits. Evergreen Collaborative recommendation summary Giving Green classifies Evergreen Collaborative as one of our top recommendations to reduce climate change. Evergreen Collaborative is a left-of-center insider 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. Image: Senator Tina Smith speaking at a press conference for the No Climate, No Deal campaign. Courtesy of Evergreen Collaborative. We first recommended Evergreen Collaborative in 2021, and focused our initial analysis on its federal legislative work. Evergreen successfully advocated for many initiatives that were included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) such as clean energy tax credits, the green bank, and environmental justice block grants. Following the passage of the IRA, Evergreen Collaborative is now planning to work on bill implementation, state-level policy, and influencing the Biden Administration and federal agencies to take further action on climate. We think Evergreen Collaborative will be impactful in these areas, given its track record of success, organizational strengths, strategic approach, and emphasis on aligning its work to what is most politically tractable. For more information, see our deep dive research report , as well as a summary below. What is Evergreen Collaborative? Evergreen Collaborative is a left-of-center insider 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. What does Evergreen Collaborative do? Evergreen Collaborative’s main strength has been in developing and advocating for climate policy, especially for the power sector and environmental justice initiatives. Moving forward, Evergreen has transitioned its strategy to reflect the climate policy landscape after the passage of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA). It has identified four major initiatives: (i) implementing the IIJA and IRA, (ii) pushing the administration to take further climate action, (iii) working on state policy and implementation, and (iv) remaining active in contributing to further federal legislative climate opportunities. How could Evergreen Collaborative reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs)? Evergreen Collaborative reduces GHGs from the atmosphere by influencing policymakers and regulators via its policy workstream and coalition building. What is Evergreen Collaborative’s cost-effectiveness? We have done a back of the envelope calculation to estimate Evergreen’s cost-effectiveness in the context of IRA implementation. We have low confidence in the ability of this model to estimate Evergreen’s general cost-effectiveness due to uncertainty regarding the scope and efficacy of Evergreen’s influence on IRA implementation; as a result we had to use too many highly subjective guess parameters. Overall, we think Evergreen Collaborative could plausibly be within the range of cost-effectiveness we would consider for a top recommendation. Is there room for more funding? Evergreen’s 2022 budget is $5 million, but it would like it to grow to $7.5 million to increase capacity for its priority projects. In particular, it would like to expand its capacity to ensure that it can work closely with the Treasury on rulemaking. In addition, Evergreen outlined six ways that the Biden Administration could use executive actions, but it only has dedicated staff working on one of these pathways – the power sector. It would like to expand capacity to include more dedicated staff working on the other areas. Are there major co-benefits or adverse effects? We think co-benefits include Evergreen Collaborative’s commitment to environmental justice issues. We are not aware of any adverse effects. Key uncertainties and open questions: Given that Evergreen has mostly focused on federal legislative policy development and advocacy, we are uncertain about its efficacy regarding bill implementation especially on the state level. In addition, through conversations with Evergreen and other policy experts, we have understood small size and relative agility to be important traits behind Evergreen’s efficacy. We are uncertain if, or how much, growth of the organization will affect its nimbleness. Bottom line / Next steps: We classify Evergreen Collaborative as one of our top recommendations. While we are uncertain how Evergreen’s work moving forward (e.g., bill implementation, regulation, state policy) will compare to its legislative work in terms of impact and cost, we believe that Evergreen is a highly effective organization given its track record, agility, policy knowledge, sphere of influence, and emphasis on calibrating its work to the political climate. Donate to Evergreen Collaborative to help push corporations, states, & the executive branch to take full advantage of new climate policy. You can give to Evergreen Collaborative directly . Evergreen Collaborative is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight Inc., which is itself a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we are only offering an opinion on the charitable activities of Evergreen Collaborative, and not on Evergreen Action. This is a non-partisan analysis (study or research) and is provided for educational purposes.

Forestry // BACK This report has moved! Please see Forestry for our general work on forestry interventions and Forestry Carbon Offsets for our work specific to forestry interventions as carbon offsets.

BURN // BACK This recommendation was last updated in November 2022. It may no longer be accurate, both with respect to the evidence it presents and our assessment of the evidence. We do not have plans to update this recommendation in the foreseeable future as we have paused our work assessing direct carbon removal and offset projects. Questions and comments are welcome. Giving Green believes that donating to our top recommendations is likely to be the most impactful giving strategy for supporting climate action. However, we recognize that contributing to policy advocacy (as most of these recommendations do) may not be tenable for all donors, especially busines s es. Taking this into consideration, we recommend BURN specifically for businesses given its focus on carbon removal and more direct alignment with corporate net-zero ambitions. We believe BURN to be a high-impact option, but we are unsure of the extent to which its cost-effectiveness approaches that of our top recommendations. Overview of BURN stoves Theory of Change Mechanism Causality Project-level additionality Marginal additionality Permanence Co-benefits Cost-effectiveness Conclusions Overview of BURN stoves BURN Manufacturing designs, manufactures, and distributes a line of fuel-efficient cookstoves in nine countries across Africa. With two solar-powered manufacturing facilities in Kenya, BURN describes itself as “the only vertically integrated modern cookstove company in Sub-Saharan Africa”. It has distributed over two million stoves through several channels. The models it primarily uses for carbon credit purposes are the charcoal-burning Jikokoa Classic and the wood-burning Kuniokoa stoves, which are directly distributed or delivered through partnerships. [1] Giving Green recommends BURN stoves on the weight of randomized controlled trial (RCT) evidence demonstrating high causality of emissions reductions. BURN stoves also have the co-benefit of reducing household spending on cooking fuel, improving health outcomes, and reducing time spent cooking. Theory of Change The following theory of change maps the link between BURN stoves and reduced GHG emissions. While BURN primarily sells its stoves in the market, its offsets fund projects that provide stoves to households at heavily reduced prices or for free. [2] BURN stoves are designed to increase the fuel efficiency of households that use biomass as their primary cooking fuel source. Offsets contribute to all facets of these projects, including production, consumer engagement, and stove distribution. Increased stove usage over time leads to reduced GHGs over time as consumers switch from their traditional cookstoves to BURN’s fuel-efficient cookstoves. Figure 1: Theory of change for reducing GHGs via purchasing BURN's offsets. We also lay out key parameters we use to model the cost-effectiveness of purchasing offsets from BURN: Assumptions (relevant stage of theory of change as described above in parentheses): Offsets increase stove production and distribution. (2) There is marginal additionality in the number of BURN stoves being used due to offset money. (3) Stoves are fuel efficient. (4) Consumer behavior is modified. (4) Money saved by consumers doesn't lead to GHG emitted elsewhere. (4) Model parameters: How many offset dollars are needed for one additional stove? (3) What is the reduction in fuel use over time? (4) How is reduction in fuel converted to GHGs averted? (4) What % of GHG reduction is maintained? (4) Mechanism The use of BURN’s cookstoves avoids emissions that would have been released by less fuel-efficient methods of cooking. Causality As mentioned in our overview of cookstove offsets , the academic literature on the link between efficient cookstoves and reduced emissions is mixed. The amount of credits a stove generates is highly variable, depending on the methodology, geography, profile of households receiving products, fuel usage (which is measured pre- and post-intervention), cooking practices, and product specs. For example, stoves in Somalia are credited more due to the less efficient standard baseline stoves, larger household size, higher rate of deforestation, and lower fuel-stacking. [3] Berkouwer and Dean (2022) conducted a rigorous RCT trial on the impact of BURN stoves and found that charcoal fuel usage, as measured by weighing of ashes and by self-reported use, declined by around 39%. [4] This is close to BURN’s claims of a 50% reduction in fuel usage. Additionally, a smaller experiment involving 154 stove users confirmed that these reductions in fuel use persisted 18 months later. We would have liked to see long-term usage data from their larger RCT sample to verify the persistence of fuel use reduction, but we view these results as encouraging. The stove model studied in this RCT was the Jikokoa Classic, which is still primarily used for most credit-producing projects alongside the Kuniokoa model. [5] Target markets remain similar to the context used within the study. [6] Overall, we view the evidence on the causality of BURN stoves in reducing GHG emissions to be quite strong. However, our assessment of the exact greenhouse gas reduction is less certain now that BURN has expanded to different geographies and stove types. Project-level additionality Project-level additionality seeks to answer the following question: would BURN exist and sell stoves in the absence of offsets? The majority of BURN’s revenues are from stove sales. Offsets are just a small part of its income, estimated at roughly 2-3% of total revenues. Representatives from BURN claim that offsets are an unreliable source of income, and therefore they cannot rely on income from offsets to fund their core business. However, offset money is generally tied to specific projects that distribute stoves among populations that normally would not have access to them. Carbon credit revenue allows Jikokoa and Kuniokoa stoves to be sold at a subsidized, more affordable price; we believe these projects would likely not exist without donor money. Overall, we assess that BURN offsets have a medium level of project-level additionality, as it’s difficult to verify whether offset money is directly going to projects that distribute stoves for free or reduced prices. However, from 2022, BURN has lowered prices for all stoves in all markets, meaning that every stove sold is now subsidized by carbon offsetting. BURN claims that as a consequence, the vast majority of BURN's distribution would now not be feasible without the sale of credits . Marginal additionality To achieve marginal additionality, each offset purchased must lead directly to additional emission reductions. For BURN, there is certainly potential for each additional offset sold to lead to more stoves being sold or used. While offsets are generated from previous projects, showing a market for offsets allows BURN to continue developing and marketing new projects with subsidized stoves. However, money is fungible. BURN could book money from offset sales as profits or raise salaries. It could also invest in marketing strategies that do not work. BURN, however, is a social enterprise with multiple impact investors on its board. BURN’s mission is “saving lives and forests.” It also claims that all of its offset projects are “break-even” and do not contribute to other parts of BURN’s business. While we cannot verify its claim of using offset revenues to increase stove distribution, we find the claim consistent with BURN’s expansion strategy and believe that the additional income earned will help put more stoves in the hands of families. Overall, it is not possible to verify with certainty that an additional offset purchased leads directly to the purchase of additional stoves and, therefore, to the reduction of GHGs in the atmosphere. However, BURN is a social enterprise, and we believe that it is likely that with more revenue, it will increase stove distribution. Permanence Fuel use reduction from clean cookstoves represents permanent decreases in emissions. Co-benefits Beyond reducing GHG emissions, Berkouwer and Dean (2022) also found clear economic benefits for households using BURN stoves. Berkouwer and Dean (2022) estimate that for the study population, purchasing a BURN stove resulted in fuel savings of $119/year, roughly equivalent to one month of income. They conclude that relative to a $40 unit price, the internal rate of return for one household is 295% per year, and “larger than most relevant alternative investments likely available to households.” BURN stoves can make a real difference in a family’s spending power. In addition, BURN stoves reduce the time spent cooking – a burden predominantly borne by women. Berkouwer and Dean (2022) find an average reduction of 54 minutes per day, for households using the BURN stoves. Using improved cookstoves also improves health, as better indoor air quality could decrease the incidence and severity of respiratory diseases. [7] Berkouwer and Dean (2022) find that BURN stove users self-report better respiratory health than those who did not use BURN stoves. BURN research finds that the Jikokoa reduces indoor air pollution (PM2.5 and CO) by 65%, and that the Kuniokoa reduces smoke by 82%. Cost-effectiveness Giving Green conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis to estimate the cost per ton of CO2 removed from using BURN’s fuel-efficient cookstoves. Our goal is to validate our recommendation of BURN as a highly effective agent in reducing GHG emissions. The data we use comes primarily from project-level data from BURN alongside impact estimates from Berkouwer and Dean (2022). View our model here . The RCT conducted by Berkouwer and Dean (2022) concluded that study households annually spent 39% less on charcoal, which translated to a reduction of 331 kg in charcoal per household per year, given local charcoal prices at the time of the study. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2017) estimates that kg of charcoal emits 7.2–9.0 kg of CO2e from the production process alone; combustion adds 2.36 kg of CO2e. [8] Taking the midpoint of the former range, we estimate that each stove avoids 3.46 metric tons of CO2e per household annually. BURN lifetime analyses based on testing data and field data suggest that the lifetime of stoves subsidized by carbon credits may be around 5-7 years. [9] BURN told us that field survey data have an approximate 6% annual attrition rate (i.e., BURN is no longer able to reach around 25% of initially-surveyed cookstove owners by the fifth year of surveys). [10] If unreachable households are more likely to no longer use BURN stoves, relative to households that BURN is able to reach for surveys in subsequent years, it’s possible that we have overestimated the cookstove lifetime. As a rough adjustment for this, we use BURN’s lower-bound estimate of a five-year stove lifetime. Adding a 3% future carbon discount, our final estimate of GHGs avoided per household is 17.31 tCO2e over the lifetime of the stove. To then obtain the offset dollars required per tCO2e avoided, we incorporate BURN’s production-to-delivery cost of $76.28 USD, [11] which is its estimate for certain offset-funded projects. Dividing this quantity by 17.31 tCO2e, we estimate that $4.81 in offsets avoids 1 ton of CO2e. This number is less than the price at which BURN sells an offset for a ton of CO2 on its website—which varies over time but is $30/ton as of November 2022—and suggests that offsets from BURN are highly cost-effective. There are multiple reasons why our final estimate is not equal to the costs stated on BURN’s website. First, despite the stove’s estimated lifetime of 5-7 years, the crediting period for BURN is shorter because not all stoves will last this long. As a result, it does not make financial sense to conduct the validation exercises needed to issue credits once a non-negligible proportion of stoves have failed. Next, there may be differences in which parts of the charcoal life cycle are accounted for in the estimation of GHG averted — combustion, or combustion plus production. According to BURN, it was conservative in its submissions to offset certifiers, and once these parameters have been submitted to a crediting body, they are difficult to change. It is important to realize that supply and demand determine the price of offsets on the market rather than the program cost. BURN sells its carbon credits to different buyers at different prices, providing lower prices to corporate purchasers who buy in bulk. As the sale of one credit or 1,000 credits requires the same amount of administration, the recently increased prices on its website ensure the total cost of offset projects is covered, reflecting that most website sales are for one credit only. However, in this case, the marketed price of the credit is not meaningful: what matters is the total amount of money spent. Buyers who spend $100 on low-priced credits contribute the same amount to a project as those who spend $100 on high-priced credits. As a result, our calculations show a discrepancy between BURN’s sale price and the actual cost per CO2e averted, meaning that per Giving Green’s analysis, each offset sold by BURN avoids more than 1 ton of CO2e. Conclusions We believe that BURN stoves are strongly linked to reduced GHG emissions and improve the well-being of their owners. As with almost all offsets, we do not think offset purchases viably translate to a specific amount of CO2 removed. However, we believe that purchasing offsets enables BURN to distribute more stoves and directionally leads to fewer emissions. You can purchase offsets directly from BURN off their website through a corporate or individual option. We thank Peter Scott, CEO/Founder, Chris McKinney, Chief Commerce Officer, Andrew Weiner, Strategic Associate, and Molly Brown, Strategic Associate to Carbon at BURN Manufacturing for a series of conversations that informed this document. Endnotes [1] “The vast majority of the crediting is using flagship products, the Jikokoa Classic and the Kuniokoa.” “Distribution itself is done through a mix of direct and via partnerships.” BURN email correspondence, 2022-10-04 [2] “Carbon revenue is used to subsidize the cost of our stoves to a price that is affordable for the majority of families. We are targeting prices of $15-25 for Jikokoas and $0-10 for Kuniokoas.” BURN email correspondence, 2022-10-04 [3] “In Somalia for instance, we credit more per stove due to the less efficient baseline stoves, larger household size, higher rate of deforestation, and lower fuel-stacking.” BURN email correspondence, 2022-10-04 [4] https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.20210766 [5] “The vast majority of the crediting is using flagship products, the Jikokoa Classic and the Kuniokoa.” BURN email correspondence, 2022-10-04 [6] " Yes, in general our target markets remain the same across geographies” BURN email correspondence, 2022-10-04 [7] “The burning of such fuels, particularly in poor households, results in air pollution that leads to respiratory diseases which can result in premature death.” Ritchie and Roser, 2022. [8] Production: https://www.fao.org/3/i6934e/i6934e.pdf ; combustion: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0961953402000089?via%3Dihub [9] BURN correspondence, 2022-11-15 [10] BURN correspondence, 2022-11-15 [11] In 2021 we used $50.85, which reflected the average cost in urban Kenya. BURN has begun expanding its operations to other countries and contexts and has noted that while it does not yet have an updated estimate for average cost, distribution in rural areas is significantly more expensive. To account for this, we have increased the cost by 50%, but we will revise this number when BURN generates an updated estimate.

Securing America’s Future Energy // BACK

Clean Air Task Force: Deep Dive // BACK Download the report: CATF 2024 .pdf Download PDF • 1.55MB This report was updated in November 2024. Unless otherwise cited, information in this deep dive comes from direct correspondence with Clean Air Task Force. Clean Air Task Force is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization in the United States. As Giving Green is part of IDinsight Inc., a charitable, tax-exempt organization, we only offer an opinion on the charitable activities of Clean Air Task Force, not CATF Action. This non-partisan analysis (study or research) is provided for educational purposes. Summary Clean Air Task Force (CATF) is one of the top climate nonprofits selected by Giving Green in 2024. We previously recommended CATF in 2023 , 2022 , 2021 , and 2020 . CATF has a history of successfully advocating for a wide array of climate provisions in the US and is expanding its influence internationally. In particular, CATF has begun to scale its work on technology innovation to include global implementation and commercialization, focusing on technologies that are either nascent or lack broad support from civil society. By raising awareness and advocating for favorable policies in these areas, we think CATF can speed up decarbonization in sectors that might otherwise struggle to secure funding. When we reassessed CATF in 2024, we closely analyzed three program areas aligned with our sectors of focus—superhot rock energy, zero-carbon fuels, and transportation decarbonization—and were impressed by the teams’ technical analysis, stakeholder engagement, and policy advocacy. While we have not assessed the other program areas in detail, we have a strong view of CATF’s work overall; our recommendation is for unrestricted funding of the organization at large. CATF would use additional funds to support the multi-year strategies of its existing programs and continued international expansion. What is CATF? CATF is a nonprofit that advocates for a suite of technologies and policies to decarbonize the economy across sectors. CATF’s work can be generalized into three categories: modeling and systems analysis, technology innovation, and policy advocacy. While it has predominantly focused on the US in the past, it has expanded its work to the EU, the Middle East, and Africa. How could CATF address climate change? Many technologies that CATF prioritizes are either nascent or not broadly supported by civil society despite being recognized as critical to decarbonization. By elevating these issue areas to public attention and advocating for favorable policies, CATF can help accelerate decarbonization in areas that may otherwise struggle to secure funding. What are some of CATF’s historical accomplishments? CATF helped secure key climate provisions in the bipartisan US. Energy Act of 2020, and provided technical assistance and input on important authorization and funding measures in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA). It also successfully advocated for Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) provisions relating to cutting methane pollution, advancing neglected low-emissions technologies, and making tax incentives and grants stackable. CATF was instrumental in catalyzing the Global Methane Pledge, introduced by US President Joe Biden and EU President Ursula von der Leyen in September 2021, and signed by more than 100 countries at COP26. Under this pledge, countries collectively agree to reduce methane emissions by 30% by 2030. What’s new at CATF in 2024? CATF has been deeply engaged in advancing key policy priorities in the US and EU that align with our philanthropic strategies, including a federal clean fuel standard and R&D funding for advanced geothermal technologies. Moving forward, CATF is continuing its expansive policymaker engagement and education on these crucial policy levers. CATF is conducting first-of-a-kind modeling of the full U.S. transportation sector to assess the impact on fuel demand and emissions under a range of potential policy developments. In terms of its work on geothermal, CATF continues to provide thought leadership on superhot rock geothermal and has broadened its policy work to include supporting demonstrations of existing next-generation geothermal technologies. CATF’s efforts underpin its goals to enable positive policy progress on key technologies in priority geographies. Is there room for more funding? We think that CATF could effectively absorb more money to expand geographically and sustain multi-year program strategies. Are there major co-benefits or potential risks? We think the major co-benefits and adverse effects of CATF’s work are more directly linked to the technologies for which CATF advocates. For example, co-benefits for geothermal include a geothermal power plants’ smaller land footprint compared to other generating technologies, improved air quality compared to continued fossil fuel usage, and job opportunities for former fossil fuel workers. Adverse effects include risks of contaminated groundwater and induced seismicity. Co-benefits for ZCFs include lower air pollution, and adverse effects include toxicity and other safety concerns. For more information, see our deep dives on Geothermal Energy and Decarbonizing Aviation and Maritime Shipping . Key uncertainties and open questions: Key uncertainties include the consequences of rapid growth, support of incentives for power sector carbon capture utilization and storage (CCUS) and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) for storage of captured emissions or atmospheric removals, support for a broad low-carbon hydrogen portfolio, hedging our bets on next-generation geothermal technologies in different stages of development, and the general feasibility of decarbonizing aviation. Bottom line / next steps: We classify CATF as one of our top recommendations for nonprofits addressing climate change. We think there is strong evidence to support its work in technological innovation and its increasingly international influence. Also, we think its strategy of focusing on emerging technologies and neglected sectors can help accelerate interventions and activities that would otherwise struggle to secure funding. In particular, we find its work in superhot rock energy, zero-carbon fuels, and transport decarbonization to be highly effective and complementary to the work of our other recommendations in geothermal energy and decarbonization of aviation and maritime shipping: Project InnerSpace and Opportunity Green , respectively.

Forestry Carbon Offsets // BACK This report was last updated in September 2022. The prior version of this report was published in October 2021 . Table of Contents Summary Overview Forests as a carbon offset Mechanism Causality Project-level additionality Marginal additionality Permanence Cost-effectiveness Co-benefits and adverse effects Assessment of forest projects Finding high-quality forest projects Closing the quality gap References Endnotes Summary Preventing deforestation plays a key role in reducing climate change, but forest carbon offsets suffer from two main problems that make it difficult to know their actual impact: permanence and leakage. For example, trees must stay alive for many years to keep CO2 out of the atmosphere but face numerous threats (e.g., wildfires, tree disease). Additionally, some forestry offset projects may shift where deforestation occurs and thus have no net effect on avoided emissions and carbon removal. This leakage adds a layer of uncertainty to any forest project that is very difficult to account for. Therefore, reliable measurement, reporting, and verification of greenhouse gas mitigation are highly important for forestry offsets. However, we have not found any forest offsets that we feel confident recommending. We would consider searching for high-quality projects that can resolve these difficulties. Overview Forest conservation, improved forest management, and afforestation/reforestation projects have gained popularity as “nature-based” solutions to fighting climate change. This trend makes sense, as deforestation contributes around 8% of the world’s annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions (Gibbs et al., 2018), and the revitalization of forests can be a vital carbon removal solution. Nature-based projects have received substantial financial support from companies like Apple, which launched a $200 million Restore Fund in 2021 (Lyons, 2021); Amazon, which launched a $100 million restoration fund in 2019 (Palmer, 2020); Netflix (Calma, 2021); and others to help achieve their net-zero climate goals. Additionally, the World Economic Forum established an initiative to plant 1 trillion trees by 2030 (Samuels, 2020). This increased interest in supporting forest conservation and tree-planting comes as the world’s tropical forests lost 12.2 million hectares of tree cover in 2020 (roughly the area of Pennsylvania) (Roesinger, 2021), a 12% increase from the year before. In addition, the speed of ongoing deforestation led to many degraded forests becoming carbon sources instead of carbon sinks (Murphy & Mooney, 2019). The increased global attention to addressing this challenge warrants a deeper look into forest carbon offsets. Forests as a carbon offset Types of carbon offsets An analysis by Carbon Direct found that forest offset projects made up roughly 60% of carbon credits available in voluntary markets between 2015-2020 (Mitchell-Larson & Bushman, 2021). Forest offset projects generally fund non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working to protect or increase forest cover. There are three types of projects (Parajuli et al., 2019): Avoided conversion – Avoided conversion projects identify forested land under threat of deforestation and take specific actions to prevent deforestation. I mproved forest management (IFM) – IFM is any change from conventional logging that reduces net emissions (Griscom & Cortez, 2013). IFM practices include reducing environmental damages from logging, identifying and creating conservation zones, and enabling tree growth and regeneration. Afforestation/reforestation – Afforestation and reforestation increase forest cover by adding new trees. Afforestation plants trees in areas where there were no trees before, while reforestation plants trees in forests that have been depleted. Mechanism Forest projects have the potential to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and avoid CO2 emissions. Carbon removal – Living trees remove carbon by fixing CO2 from the atmosphere and converting it into carbohydrates, which the trees need to function and make wood for growth. Trees store this carbon in their trunk, branches, leaves, and roots. Some of this carbon is released by the tree while the tree is still alive. For example, trees ‘exhale’ some CO2 at night when photosynthesis ceases due to lack of sunlight. Avoided carbon emissions – Trees lock up most of their carbon for as long as they are alive. When these trees die and decompose, they become a source of greenhouse gases (GHGs) by releasing their stored carbon. Protecting trees from destruction helps avoid carbon loss. The three types of carbon offset projects primarily use the mechanisms described below: Table 1: Carbon offset project type and mechanism for mitigating climate change Causality There is uncertainty on how much forests impact cooling. Many climate scientists believe that increasing forest cover is a critical tool in fighting climate change. However, there are challenges related to accurate measurement, reporting, and verification of GHG emissions. For example, there is considerable uncertainty on how much carbon is stored in forests and how much carbon they gain and lose. Sources of uncertainty include the following (Petrofsky et al., 2021): Difficulties accessing remote forests Limited inventory (e.g., field measurements limited to small areas) Forests’ large extent Additionally, the impact of trees on the climate is complex because trees release a variety of gases into the atmosphere and also impact the earth’s reflectivity (albedo) (Popkin, 2019). Emitting other gases into the atmosphere – Although direct carbon capture has a cooling effect, trees emit other gases into the atmosphere (Pearce, 2019), some of which may have warming effects. For example, trees can be a methane source by (1) acting as a conduit for methane produced by microorganisms in the soil and/or (2) releasing methane from its decomposing parts. Additionally, trees also release volatile organic compounds such as isoprene, which has both warming and cooling effects. Impacting albedo – Trees can affect warming by changing how much solar radiation the earth reflects. For example, conifers with dark leaves in far northern forests have a lower albedo than their surrounding snow cover, which is highly reflective. Planting dark trees in this area would increase the amount of solar radiation absorbed, which could reduce or even eliminate the positive effects of their carbon capture. Forestry projects that are based in the tropics are less likely to be impacted by the albedo effect. Ultimately, projects focused on improving forest cover likely increase carbon storage on average but there is uncertainty on each project’s mitigation potential. Furthermore, each project must be appropriate to the local context. It is challenging to compare forest projects against their counterfactuals. Even when we assume that increasing the number of trees unambiguously fights climate change, establishing the causality and additionality of any forest project on carbon sequestration benefits can be difficult. For example, some forest offset projects aim to prevent deforestation by paying landowners not to cut down their trees - but how can you know that they would have cut down the trees without the credit? Third-party voluntary certifying organizations like Verra and Gold Standard try to address concerns related to causality and additionality by (1) selling offsets that meet detailed standards and (2) requiring projects to document the history of the land and suggest what would have happened under the counterfactual (e.g., in the absence of credits). However, there is limited rigorous evidence of valid counterfactuals. For example, CarbonPlan uncovered systematic over-crediting of forest offsets under California’s forest offset program (Badgley et al., 2021). The difference between how much CO2 was supposedly and actually offset was about 30 million tons of CO2, at a cost of $400 million. This over-crediting happened because project developers created faulty counterfactual baselines and therefore overstated the projects’ climate benefits. In addition, a study that examined 12 projects in the Brazilian Amazon found that the projects overstated carbon emissions reductions partly because the baselines they used were based on historical trends of deforestation that were no longer realistic (West et al., 2020). Without a convincing counterfactual, it is hard to trust claims of how much forestry projects avoided CO2 emissions or removed CO2 from the atmosphere. Forest projects can lead to leakage. Forest projects can suffer from leakage when projects that prevent deforestation in one area cause tree destruction to occur in a different location. Leakage is likely to happen if projects do not address the underlying demand for non-forested land. For example, a project in Brazil might protect a specific forested area from being converted to pasture land, but shift deforestation to another forest if the ranchers’ demand for agricultural land and income goes unmet. Leakage can also occur under afforestation projects when people are incentivized to cut down mature forests to have clear land for planting new trees. Leakage risks depend heavily on the underlying reason for deforestation and the outside options for the people demanding deforestation. Difficulties in measuring carbon removal and avoidance can lead to exaggerated claims. Forest carbon offset projects typically neither measure GHG emissions directly nor quantify other contributions to warming, presumably because doing so would be prohibitively expensive. Instead, people often model avoided emissions and CO2 removed based on the number and species of trees planted, managed, or conserved. However, project developers are incentivized to exaggerate claims about the number and type of trees in their forests, as well as the benefits of their forest management practices. Third-party voluntary certifying agencies address this by requiring periodic audits, but the program implementers generally contract these themselves, which presents a conflict of interest. There are few rigorous impact evaluations of forest interventions. There are few rigorous impact evaluations of forest interventions in the public policy literature. We describe a few examples below: Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) In a randomized controlled trial for a PES program in Uganda, farmers were paid not to cut down their trees (Jayachandran et al., 2017). The researchers found decreased deforestation compared to control areas and established that leakage was unlikely to occur. A separate study of a government-run PES program, this time implemented in Mexico, found a reduced rate of tree cover loss in areas enrolled in the program compared to areas that were not (Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University et al., 2018). Although overall rates of observed forest cover change were low, some areas at an exceptionally high risk of deforestation saw reductions of 40 percent in tree cover loss. Afforestation/reforestation – A study published in 2021 mapped over 400 tree plantations in India planted between 1980 and 2017 and raised serious questions about the success of tree planting and forest restoration campaigns, finding no change in tree canopy cover across the plantations studied (Coleman et al., 2021). Potential reasons for this could be low survival rates of planted trees and tree planting where canopy cover is already dense. Our assessment of causality Overall, it is challenging to validate the causality of any given forest project, and for that reason, we assessed causality as low (or at least uncertain) for many forest projects. Companies have emerged to track forest activities better, estimate CO2 levels, and identify leakage using satellite imagery, LiDAR imaging, and artificial intelligence. However, it is still too early to determine whether these technologies can address causality concerns successfully at scale. For more information, please see the section, “Closing the Quality Gap.” Project-level additionality Forest conservation programs are usually run by NGOs dependent on outside funding or private sector project developers. For NGO-run projects, it seems reasonable to assume that income from offsets is directly fueling project operations, allowing more activities than without them. Therefore, for these projects, we assess project-level additionality as high . However, sometimes forest offsets are related to enterprises looking to profit by selling lumber. In these cases, the effort may have been profitable without offsets, and therefore it may not satisfy project-level additionality. Marginal additionality Marginal additionality means that each additional offset purchased contributes to reduced emissions. This is an important requirement for projects to work as advertised: the purchase of every single offset must cause extra GHG reduction. Forest projects generally need continuous revenue flow to keep operating and can use the additional funding to expand their work. Therefore, we believe that a well-functioning forest project is likely to satisfy marginal additionality. However, a well-functioning forest project would need to demonstrate that offset revenues led to carbon removal or avoidance each year . Buyers should consider the vintage of the forest offset project as well. Vintage refers to the year the emissions reduction took place. For forest projects where emissions reductions took place many years in the past, we would assess the marginal additionality as low. Permanence The length of carbon storage depends on tree survival. Trees do not store carbon permanently because they will release much of their stored carbon back into the atmosphere when they eventually die. Therefore, the ability of trees to reduce levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and avoid carbon loss depends on their survival. [1] Forests face natural and manmade threats of destruction. Risks to permanence can be unintentional (e.g., wildfires, pests, and tree disease) or intentional (e.g., logging and arson). To address the risks related to reversal, voluntary certifying agencies assign a risk score to forest projects and require projects to place a risk-related proportion of credits into a risk buffer pool; reserved credits in the risk buffer pool can be used to compensate for reversals. However, it is unclear whether future monitoring of reversals will be adequate and if the buffer pool will be enough to account for them. For instance, a recent report by CarbonPlan questions whether the buffer pool in forest offsets in California’s cap and trade market is sufficient given the forests’ increased susceptibility to forest fires (Herbert et al., 2020). Meanwhile, over 150,000 acres of forested areas along America’s West Coast that were previously used as forest offsets burned to the ground in Summer 2021 alone (Pardikar, 2021). Recent reports suggest that typical buffer pools put in place (10-20% of the total project) are straining as wildfires, disease, and pests multiply (Wolfe & Yellin, 2021). Our assessment of permanence Permanence is an essential consideration because CO2 can remain in the atmosphere for anywhere between 300 and 1,000 years (Buis, 2019). Therefore, it is questionable for forest projects to credibly claim long-term climate benefits if their advertised benefits have a high risk of being reversed within a few years or decades. Overall, permanence is a persistent issue in forest projects, as it is tough to guarantee an emissions reduction with a temporary project permanently. As a result, we assess the permanence of many forest offset projects as low . Cost-effectiveness According to Forest Trends Ecosystem Marketplace, the average price of forestry and land-use offsets within voluntary carbon markets was $4.73 per metric ton of CO2-equivalent (CO2-eq) as of September 2021 (Donofrio et al., 2021). However, most forest projects are avoidance-based, so this price mainly reflects the cost of avoidance projects. Projects that provide carbon removal tend to be more expensive as they require significant effort to plant new trees and, ideally, maintain and monitor their growth. In 2018, afforestation and reforestation projects claiming carbon removal benefits had an average price of $5.70 per metric ton of CO2-eq (Donofrio et al., 2019). While these prices are low relative to other forms of emissions avoidance and carbon removal, their cost per actual ton of CO2-eq is difficult to assess, given questions about causality and permanence. For example, increasing buffer pools to compensate for trees dying during the life of a project would significantly increase the cost. Additionally, to permanently offset carbon emissions, the program would have to be run in perpetuity, making the offset cost prohibitively high. [2] CarbonPlan recently developed a tool to estimate the equivalent cost of making a temporary project’s carbon removal benefits permanent via continued renewal. We applied the below conditions for a tree-planting program to determine the cost of ensuring its carbon removal benefits over 1,000 years: The project costs $6 per metric ton of CO2-eq today The project lasts 20 years and is renewed every 20 years for the next 1,000 years. The project has a 10 percent annual risk of failure due to risks such as forest fires. There is a 3 percent discount rate on future costs. After entering these conditions into the tool, we found that buyers should budget around $29 per metric ton of CO2-eq for a project that only costs $6 per metric ton of CO2-eq today to deliver carbon removal benefits on a 1,000-year basis. However, implementing 20-year projects repeatedly over 1,000 years would be challenging. In another scenario, we assumed that after 60 years of renewing 20-year-long projects, we would replace the project with a direct air capture project that permanently removes carbon at the cost of $200 per metric ton of CO2-eq, which is well below today’s average cost for our recommended permanent carbon removal providers. In this scenario, the budgeted price increases to $110 per metric ton of CO2-eq (plus or minus $6), much higher than the advertised $6 per metric ton price. Ultimately, buyers should be aware that forest projects’ costs do not reflect their permanence and causality challenges. Co-benefits and adverse effects Co-benefits to forest projects include preserved biodiversity, decreased risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks, improved water quality, and increased recreation opportunities. Some projects can increase income-generating opportunities, while others can hinder these opportunities, depending on land tenure and other considerations. Also, forestry projects can have adverse effects, such as decreased land and resources for agriculture and increased risks of reduced biodiversity, intensified struggles over controlling land, and displacement of people who depend on the forests. People will need to assess co-benefits and adverse effects on a project-to-project basis because they are context-specific. Assessment of forest projects Overall, our assessment of forest projects puts us in a difficult situation. Forest projects play an important role in reducing climate change, but there is no reason to believe that these projects will happen based on market forces. Therefore, there is a need for additional funding for protection, and the offset market provides an opportunity to achieve this funding. For a high-quality project, funding conservation likely is one of the most cost-effective ways to lower GHG emissions. However, assessing the causal impact of any offset on GHG reduction is extremely difficult, and we do not believe that the certification procedures put in place by the offset certifiers give a high enough level of certainty for us to recommend a cost-effective funding opportunity. We are not the only ones to come to this conclusion on forest offsets. For instance, a guide to assessing the validity of carbon offsets categorizes forest offsets as “higher risk” of being low quality due to concerns about additionality and permanence (Broekhoff et al., 2019). While high-quality forest projects certainly deserve funding, the offset market may not currently be the optimal mechanism to deliver this funding. Offsets require high standards of certainty that are challenging for forest projects to meet. Additionally, given that offsets need to be centered around carbon accounting, it is too narrow of a framework to account for the myriad co-benefits that trees provide. Finding high-quality forest projects Forest offsets are among the most popular offsets available in voluntary carbon markets. However, the numerous projects behind these offsets vary significantly in quality, cost, and co-benefits. The popularity, variety, and challenges associated with forest offsets prompted us to consider what features we would expect to see in a forest offset project that would make us confident in recommending it. We would consider evaluating a forest project if it demonstrated the following: Causality: The project would need to show a clear causal impact, meaning: An identified counterfactual that shows deforestation happening or lower carbon stock without the project. A sophisticated analysis demonstrating that leakage is not happening. The project takes place in geographies where increased absorption of solar radiation is not a concern. Marginal additionality: The project is currently active, and the funding received is applied towards the continued advancement of the specific climate benefits claimed. Permanence: The project demonstrates a low risk of reversal and has the means to monitor setbacks. For example, the forested area would need a track record of low risk of a forest fire or widespread tree disease. Additionally, a strong buffer pool helps address permanence risks. We would also need to know how long the project will be funded for and whether it has a plan to be replaced with carbon removal purchases. Adverse effects: The project does not harm or disrupt the livelihoods of individuals living in nearby communities. Closing the quality gap Recently, organizations have leveraged new approaches and technological innovations to attempt to address some of the challenges underlying many forest projects. These efforts include: Pachama Pachama is a broker of existing forest offset projects. It uses remote sensing tools (e.g., airborne LIDAR and satellite imaging) and artificial intelligence for each of its forest projects to estimate how much carbon they store and track whether they are losing trees. To determine additionality, the company uses historical remote sensing data to compare deforestation rates in unprotected versus protected areas. It also monitors for leakage in the unprotected areas surrounding a project. Based on its analyses, Pachama identifies certified forest carbon credits where it believes the underlying assumptions are credible and resells them on its marketplace. Pachama’s technologies could help improve the measurement of the causal impact of a forest project. However, some gaps remain in accurately measuring carbon stock, eliminating counterfactual concerns, and addressing permanence issues. For example, the cost of acquiring LIDAR data has made time series data on forest ecology relatively rare (Beland et al., 2019). NCX NCX utilizes forest mapping techniques to predict carbon stock across US forests and then facilitates an exchange between landowners and offset buyers to defer timber harvests. NCX’s key technological innovation is a detailed “base map” that estimates the predicted deforestation for every plot of forested land in the United States. Aside from claiming to quantify carbon stock more accurately, NCX has a unique approach to permanence. Namely, its projects only delay tree-cutting by one year, and it sells a guarantee of this delay to credit purchasers. It claims that delaying tree-cutting on 31 acres for one year is equivalent in terms of avoided emissions to permanently avoiding tree-cutting on one acre. NCX attempts to address leakage concerns by requiring landowners to enroll their entire properties on its platform and making its platform available to small landowners. However, we still have concerns about additionality (e.g., attracting landowners who were not going to cut down their forests), market-level leakage, and the actual value of one-year contracts. Additionally, CarbonPlan has published a critique of NCX’s carbon accounting methods and identified two primary issues related to the discount rate that NCX used in its ton-year accounting (Cullenward et al., 2022). As of May 2022, CarbonPlan noted that NCX has not yet engaged with the content of CarbonPlan’s critique. Jurisdictional REDD+, Architecture for REDD+ Transactions, and Emergent Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, plus the sustainable management of forests, and the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks (REDD+) is a United Nations-backed framework that helps mitigate climate change. REDD+ helps countries value forests based on their carbon and ecosystem benefits and establishes financial incentives for avoided conversion, IFM, and afforestation/reforestation. Some carbon offsets build off of the REDD+ framework. Jurisdictional REDD+ refers to an accounting framework that establishes consistent baselines and carbon crediting approaches across forest projects within a jurisdiction, such as a state or country. Some proponents believe that taking a jurisdictional approach to REDD+ reduces the risk of leakage because compared to project-scale interventions, jurisdictional interventions can take place over a larger area and address a broader range of deforestation drivers (Seymour, 2020). Initiatives like Architecture for REDD+ Transactions (ART) are developing standardized procedures to improve the integrity of crediting emissions reductions and removals in REDD+ projects and enhancing comparability across jurisdictions. Project developers like Emergent serve as intermediaries between tropical forest countries and the private sector to facilitate transactions that meet ART’s verification standards. Common challenges that jurisdictional scale programs face include the following (Fishbein & Lee, 2015): The need for government leaders and other stakeholders to see REDD+ projects as valuable and compelling enough to drive long-term changes in development (e.g., convincing ranchers to change their management practices) The size and complexity of jurisdictional programs, which can lead to gaps in capacity and resources Risks due to changes in government (e.g., new leadership from a different party) Bureaucratic turnover Lack of land tenure Our assessment of attempts to close the quality gap The above organizations and initiatives attempt to address different challenges, from causality and additionality to leakage and permanence. If these attempts result in projects that meet the criteria we outlined above, we would consider re-investigating the cost-effectiveness of forest offset projects. Giving Green is always willing to update our views and make changes to our recommendation as more information comes to light. This work is preliminary and subject to change. Questions and comments are welcome. References Badgley, G., Freeman, J., Hamman, J., Haya, B., Trugman, A., Anderegg, W. R. L., & Cullenward, D. (2021, April 29). Systematic over-crediting of forest offsets – CarbonPlan. https://carbonplan.org Beland, M., Parker, G., Sparrow, B., Harding, D., Chasmer, L., Phinn, S., Antonarakis, A., & Strahler, A. (2019). On promoting the use of lidar systems in forest ecosystem research. Forest Ecology and Management, 450, 117484. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2019.117484 Broekhoff, D., Gillenwater, M., Colbert-Sangree, T., & Cage, P. (2019). Securing Climate Benefit: A Guide to Using Carbon Offsets. Buis, A. (2019, October 9). The Atmosphere: Getting a Handle on Carbon Dioxide. Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet. https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2915/the-atmosphere-getting-a-handle-on-carbon-dioxide Calma, J. (2021, March 30). Netflix lays out plans to slash its greenhouse gas emissions. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/30/22353098/netflix-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-goals Coleman, E. A., Schultz, B., Ramprasad, V., Fischer, H., Rana, P., Filippi, A. M., Güneralp, B., Ma, A., Rodriguez Solorzano, C., Guleria, V., Rana, R., & Fleischman, F. (2021). Limited effects of tree planting on forest canopy cover and rural livelihoods in Northern India. Nature Sustainability, 4(11), 997–1004. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00761-z Cullenward, D., Chay, F., & Badgley, G. (2022, January 31). A critique of NCX’s carbon accounting methods. CarbonPlan. https://carbonplan.org/blog/ton-year-ncx Department of Applied Economics, Oregon State University, Economics Department, Environmental Studies Affiliate, Amherst College, Development Research Group, The World Bank, & Evaluation Department, National Forestry Commission of Mexico. (2018, June 17). Evaluating Mexico’s Payment for Environmental Services Scheme. https://www.profor.info/knowledge/evaluating-mexico%E2%80%99s-payment-environmental-services-scheme Donofrio, S., Maguire, P., Merry, W., & Zwick, S. (2019). Financing Emissions Reductions for the Future: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2019. Forest Trends. https://www.forest-trends.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/SOVCM2019.pdf Donofrio, S., Maguire, P., Myers, K., & Daley, C. (2021). Forest Trends’ Ecosystem Marketplace. 2021. ‘Market in Motion’, State of Voluntary Carbon Markets 2021, Installment 1. Forest Trends Association. Elgin, B. (2020, December 9). JPMorgan, Disney, Blackrock Buy Nature Conservancy’s Useless Carbon Offsets. Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2020-nature-conservancy-carbon-offsets-trees/ Fishbein, G., & Lee, D. (2015). Early Lessons from Jurisdictional REDD+ and Low Emissions Development Programs. https://www.nature.org/media/climatechange/REDD+_LED_Programs.pdf Gibbs, D., Harris, N., & Seymour, F. (2018). By the Numbers: The Value of Tropical Forests in the Climate Change Equation. https://www.wri.org/insights/numbers-value-tropical-forests-climate-change-equation Griscom, B. W., & Cortez, R. (2013). The Case for Improved Forest Management (IFM) as a Priority REDD+ Strategy in the Tropics. Tropical Conservation Science, 6(3), 409–425. https://doi.org/10.1177/194008291300600307 Gupta, J. (2012). Glocal forest and REDD+ governance: Win–win or lose–lose? Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 4(6), 620–627. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2012.09.014 Herbert, C., Stapp, J., Badgley, G., Anderegg, W. R. L., Cullenward, D., Hamman, J., & Freeman, J. (2020, September 17). Carbon offsets burning. CarbonPlan. https://carbonplan.org/research/offset-project-fire Jayachandran, S., de Laat, J., Lambin, E. F., Stanton, C. Y., Audy, R., & Thomas, N. E. (2017). 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 Lyons, K. (2021, April 15). Apple launches $200 million fund for climate change. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/15/22385552/apple-200-million-fund-climate-change-environment Mitchell-Larson, E., & Bushman, T. (2021). Carbon Direct Commentary: Release of the Voluntary Registry Offsets Dataset. Carbon Direct. https://carbon-direct.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/CD-Commentary-on-Voluntary-Registry-Offsets-Database_April-2021.pdf Murphy, Z., & Mooney, C. (2019, January 29). Gone in a generation: Montana’s forests have swung from pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to putting it back again. - Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/gone-in-a-generation/forest-climate-change.html Palmer, A. (2020, April 21). Amazon invests $10 million to help conserve forests as part of climate change plan. CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/21/amazon-invests-10-million-for-forest-conservation-in-climate-change-plan.html Parajuli, R., Megalos, M., Ruseva, T., Chizmar, S., & Fisher, M. (2019, July 10). An Introduction to Forest Carbon Offset Markets. NC State Extension Publications. https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/an-introduction-to-forest-carbon-offset-markets Pardikar, R. (2021, August 31). California’s Forest Carbon Offsets Are Burning Amid Record Fires. Gizmodo. https://gizmodo.com/climate-progress-is-on-fire-1847591945 Pearce, F. (2019, June 24). Scientists Zero in on Trees as a Surprisingly Large Source of Methane. Yale Environment 360. https://e360.yale.edu/features/scientists-probe-the-surprising-role-of-trees-in-methane-emissions Petrofsky, G., Kanamaru, H., Achard, F., Goetz, S. J., Joosten, H., Holmgren, P., Lehtonen, A., Menton, M. C., Pullin, A. S., & Wattenbach, M. (2021). Comparison of methods for measuring and assessing carbon stocks and carbon stock changes in terrestrial carbon pools. How do the accuracy and precision of current methods compare? A systematic review protocol. Environmental Evidence. https://doi.org/10.1186/2047-2382-1-6 Popkin, G. (2019). How much can forests fight climate change? Nature, 565(7739), 280–282. https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-00122-z Roesinger, A. (2021, August 4). What Happened to Global Forests in 2020? Global Forest Watch Blog, Global Forest Watch Content. https://www.weforest.org/newsroom/latest-news-worlds-forests Samuels, B. (2020, January 21). Trump announces the US will join 1 trillion tree initiative [Text]. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/479087-trump-announces-the-us-will-join-1-trillion-tree-initiative/ Seymour, F. (2020). INSIDER: 4 Reasons Why a Jurisdictional Approach for REDD+ Crediting Is Superior to a Project-Based Approach. https://www.wri.org/insights/insider-4-reasons-why-jurisdictional-approach-redd-crediting-superior-project-based West, T. A. P., Börner, J., Sills, E. O., & Kontoleon, A. (2020). Overstated carbon emission reductions from voluntary REDD+ projects in the Brazilian Amazon. PNAS. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2004334117 White, J. C., Coops, N. C., Wulder, M. A., Vastaranta, M., Hilker, T., & Tompalski, P. (2016). Remote Sensing Technologies for Enhancing Forest Inventories: A Review. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing. https://doi.org/10.1080/07038992.2016.1207484 Wolfe, D., & Yellin, T. (2021, July 22). Bootleg Fire is burning up carbon offsets. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/22/weather/bootleg-oregon-fire-carbon-offsets/index.html Endnotes [1] The conservation program studied in Jayachandran et al. (2017) only lasted two years, and the authors do not claim permanence. Instead, they assume that deforestation will likely resume once the program ends and that the project’s benefit came from delaying the deforestation. [2] Jaychandran et al., (2017) found that its conservation program was lower than the social cost of carbon even when only considering a delay in deforestation. Its conclusion came from a calculation that relied on an assumed discount rate and the evolution of the social cost of carbon over time. However, we do not have a high degree of confidence that a short-term program would be cost-effective. https://givinggreen.earth/contact

Carbon180: Recommendation // BACK Note: This is our recommendation of Carbon180 as published in November 2021. As of November 2022, we no longer recommend Carbon180, largely due to their success in fundraising. See more in our Carbon180 deep dive report. Summary Carbon180 is an insider policy advocacy organization that focuses on accelerating the development of carbon removal technologies and practices, which would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away for at least hundreds of years. Its four initiatives include (1) building and enacting federal policy to scale up carbon removal solutions, (2) accelerating the adoption of soil carbon sequestration practices, (3) encouraging community engagement between carbon removal researchers, and (4) stimulating innovation. Its tactics include research, policy advocacy, and ecosystem building. Carbon180 also centers equity and justice in its work to ensure that carbon removal can be scaled up in a way that is sustainable with equitably-distributed benefits. Image courtesy of Carbon180 Although Carbon180 is a relatively young organization, it already has a significant track record of success. In 2021, for example, it successfully advocated for the inclusion of billions in funding in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act for carbon removal research, development, and deployment (RD&D); CO2 infrastructure; and biologically-driven carbon removal (e.g. forestry). Its future work includes an effort to drive federal procurement of carbon removal technologies and products, which could catalyze scale-up and set a model for corporate investment. Based on Carbon180’s accomplishments, strategic approach, organizational strength, and cost-effectiveness, we recommend Carbon180 as one of our top charities in combating climate change. For more information on Carbon180, please review our Deep Dive report on the organization . Why we recommend Carbon180 We believe Carbon180 is an effective organization working on an important problem: carbon removal. It uses insider tactics to produce legislation that supports carbon removal, and has shown success in getting legislation passed under both Democratic and Republican administrations. It is a small organization with room to grow and absorb additional funding. Here, we present our reasons for recommending Carbon180. We also recommend that interested persons read our Deep Dive report on Carbon180 . 1. Carbon removal is necessary for preventing the worst possible outcomes of climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we need both emissions reductions and carbon removal in order to keep global warming below the Paris Agreement’s climate target of less than a 2ºC rise in average global temperature. In fact, the IPCC’s 2021 Sixth Assessment Report estimates that we will need to remove somewhere between 100 billion to a trillion tons of carbon by 2100 to prevent the worst effects of climate change. Delays in driving down emissions will increase the risk of warming exceeding 1.5ºC and also increase our need for negative emissions. 2. Carbon removal is neglected as a field and needs significant financial investment. Although federal support for carbon removal technologies has increased over the past few years, these technologies are currently in their early stages of development and are too expensive to scale widely. Additionally, there has been limited demand for carbon removal technologies other than from corporate social responsibility efforts by companies such as Microsoft, Stripe, and Shopify. Support for carbon removal research, development, and deployment (RD&D) is crucial because investing in carbon removal technologies can drive down their cost and eventually enable them to scale. 3. Carbon180’s federal policy development and advocacy have been highly successful in securing support for carbon removal. Carbon180 has successfully advocated for the inclusion of carbon removal in a number of bills, including the Energy Act, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and the Build Back Better Act. Policy provisions that were passed through the Energy Act and infrastructure bill include authorization of a comprehensive carbon capture R&D program, carbon capture demonstration plants, regional direct air capture hubs, and an extension of the Section 45Q tax credit for carbon capture and sequestration. 4. Carbon180 is cost-effective in removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere (in expectation). We estimated that Carbon180’s work on federal policy can remove CO2 from the atmosphere at a cost of $0.66 per metric ton (in expectation), which compares favorably to other high-performing organizations that we have analyzed. Because our CEA model only includes short term effects of Carbon180’s work on federal legislation, it seems likely that we may even have underestimated Carbon180’s impact and cost-effectiveness. Our results should be viewed as rough, indicative estimates given the uncertainty in our different model inputs. 5. Carbon180 has a strong policy focus and an experienced staff well-suited to influence policy. Carbon180’s team is experienced in policy and its leadership maintains close ties to policy insiders, which helps improve the organization’s chances of success. Importantly, its president Noah Deich was recently appointed to the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, which works to improve the US Department of Energy's research and development portfolio and program activities. 6. Carbon180 can productively use additional funds. Although Carbon180 has limited room for more funding through the end of 2021, it anticipates a gap in funding of around $2.5 million for its 2022 budget, which is estimated to reach $6 million total. Carbon180’s general operations is its biggest gap in funding. Risks to Carbon180 The largest points of uncertainty in our recommendation of Carbon180 are related to its need for more funding and ability to scale. For example, an expert in the donor community said that it is likely that Carbon180 will be able to meet its funding goals in 2022 through grants from large foundations. However, given Carbon180’s past performance and current funding gap, we believe at this point it can still benefit from individual donations. Nonetheless, this may change in the future if Carbon180 can indeed raise more money than it can spend effectively. Another risk to Carbon180 is the inherent uncertainty in whether R&D will sufficiently drive down the costs of carbon removal technologies and enable them to scale. However, because Carbon180 supports a wide portfolio of carbon removal technologies and practices, we are optimistic that it would be able to pivot if it became clear that one or more of its programs does not meet expectations. Conclusion For the reasons above, our team concluded that Carbon180 is likely a high-impact organization, and has decided to recommend it as a top-performing climate change organization.

Frequently Asked Questions You have questions, we have the answers. General General By check/mail Please note that all checks should be addressed to IDinsight Inc, with a memo indicating use for Giving Green. Address: IDinsight, P.O. Box 689, San Francisco, CA 94104-0689 By bank transfer Please contact us for transfer details. We especially encourage reaching out for gifts over $1000, so that we can minimize processing fees and maximize the impact of your gift. Other ways to give To dedicate your gift to a loved one or to start your own fundraiser for Giving Green, please visit this page. To give tax-efficiently from Australia, the Netherlands, or the UK, give through Giving What We Can. Research Research By check/mail Please note that all checks should be addressed to IDinsight Inc, with a memo indicating use for Giving Green. Address: IDinsight, P.O. Box 689, San Francisco, CA 94104-0689 By bank transfer Please contact us for transfer details. We especially encourage reaching out for gifts over $1000, so that we can minimize processing fees and maximize the impact of your gift. Other ways to give To dedicate your gift to a loved one or to start your own fundraiser for Giving Green, please visit this page. To give tax-efficiently from Australia, the Netherlands, or the UK, give through Giving What We Can. Donating Donating By check/mail Please note that all checks should be addressed to IDinsight Inc, with a memo indicating use for Giving Green. Address: IDinsight, P.O. Box 689, San Francisco, CA 94104-0689 By bank transfer Please contact us for transfer details. We especially encourage reaching out for gifts over $1000, so that we can minimize processing fees and maximize the impact of your gift. Other ways to give To dedicate your gift to a loved one or to start your own fundraiser for Giving Green, please visit this page. To give tax-efficiently from Australia, the Netherlands, or the UK, give through Giving What We Can. Consulting Consultig By check/mail Please note that all checks should be addressed to IDinsight Inc, with a memo indicating use for Giving Green. Address: IDinsight, P.O. Box 689, San Francisco, CA 94104-0689 By bank transfer Please contact us for transfer details. We especially encourage reaching out for gifts over $1000, so that we can minimize processing fees and maximize the impact of your gift. Other ways to give To dedicate your gift to a loved one or to start your own fundraiser for Giving Green, please visit this page. To give tax-efficiently from Australia, the Netherlands, or the UK, give through Giving What We Can. Have more questions? We're here to help. Please don't hesitate to reach out to us through our contact page.

Climate Impact Investing // BACK This report was last updated in November 2021. 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. 2021-11 Climate Impact Investing .pdf Download PDF Executive Summary Impact investing is the practice of investing with the intention of achieving measurable financial returns and social and environmental impact. Impact investments can occur across industries, asset classes, and risk/return profiles. In this report, we highlight impact investments with the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to the fight against the climate crisis. Historically, impact investing has been the purview of institutional investors or wealthy individuals. We choose to focus on opportunities available to retail investors in the United States. (Occasionally, we offer a note on additional opportunities available only to accredited investors.) We consider investments occurring in three asset classes: early-stage private equities, cash equivalents, and fixed-income investments. Image credit: US Department of Agriculture Private equity refers to direct holdings in private companies, and purchasing private equities, especially in early-stage companies, is often risky and inaccessible to unaccredited retail investors. Unaccredited retail investors can make limited investments of this type through a relatively new mechanism known as Regulation Crowdfunding. We discuss the potentially transformative impact of early-stage private equity investments and the significant risk associated with them. Cash equivalents and fixed-income investments are more conventional, and offer many more opportunities for retail investors. These types of investments generally offer a fixed, low to moderate return in addition to repayment of the principal. We highlight a range of climate-related investment offerings, including savings accounts at climate-focused banks, notes offered by loan funds that make climate-related loans, and bonds offered by companies or municipalities looking to fund climate-positive projects. We discuss a number of approaches to assess whether investing in a hypothetical project or firm has high potential climate impact. We focus on causality, or the reduction of atmospheric greenhouse gases attributable to the project, and additionality, or an individual investment’s contribution to increasing the impact of the project. While conclusions on impact cannot be perfectly generalized across an asset class, we observe some patterns. Startups promise transformative impact, but it is difficult as an investor to predict the likelihood of actually achieving that impact. On the other hand, cash equivalents and fixed-income investments usually have strong and defensible links to impact, even if that impact is limited in scope. We also note opportunities to invest for non-climate co-benefits, including economic development and providing financing to low-income communities. Overall, we find that there are promising ways to invest for climate impact across all asset classes, but that navigating this terrain as a retail investor is complicated. At this time, we do not recommend that retail investors make any investments in individual projects or firms, whether via equity or debt instruments. We also do not yet recommend donating philanthropic funds to any investment firm. We found one low-cost, low-risk way to support existing capital solutions, though we do not yet formally recommend it: moving money to a bank that specializes in lending to clean energy projects. We hope this report serves as a guide to the available opportunities to leverage investment capital for climate impact. We at Giving Green have barely scratched the surface of this wide-ranging and fast-growing industry, and we hope to continue to highlight new opportunities as we discover them.