Why Business and Governments are Harnessing Philanthropic and Concessionary Impact Capital for Climate Investments
Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto
- The Forum’s GAEA initiative is composed of 140 leading organizations, aggregating approximately $200 Billion in market size of impact capital pivoting into climate and nature.
- Companies and governments are seeking to work with GAEA members to address obstacles in deploying their climate investments and decarbonizing their value chains.
- GAEA’s 4P model — public, private and philanthropic partnerships — addresses market failures, accelerates decarbonization and mobilizes institutional finance to green markets at scale.
The World Economic Forum’s GAEA initiative is on track to become the single biggest market signal of philanthropic and impact capital to private and public actors, with approximately $200 billion of aggregated capital (including foundations, corporate philanthropies and ventures, endowments and other innovative financing vehicles) pivoting into climate and nature solutions around the world. Launched in January 2024, GAEA is working with 140 partners to help bridge the green finance gap. So far, the initiative has catalysed $5 billion of new climate and nature investments through its member’s commitments which continue to increase annually.
Global challenges can only be effectively addressed through global collaboration integrating all stakeholders. GAEA is adding the missing piece to the public-private cooperation initiatives of the World Economic Forum: philanthropy.
—Professor Klaus Schwab, Founder and Chairman, World Economic Forum
”GAEA represents the bold collaboration we need to secure our planet’s future. By harnessing innovative capital and uniting governments, businesses, and philanthropists, we are paving the way for transformative action that prioritises the planet. It is exciting to see players usually operating in silos come together to build common solutions.
—H.M. Queen Rania Al Abdullah of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan
”Despite some headwinds, the world transitions towards more impact-driven and systemic work. We at LGT have witnessed first-hand how collaboration across public, private, and philanthropic actors can be the tipping point for scalable, sustainable solutions. The World Economic Forum’s GAEA initiative brings these forces together at an unprecedented scale, driving the kind of market transformation our global challenges urgently demand.
—Prince Maximilian von und zu Liechtenstein, Chairman of the Board, LGT Group
”A Shift in Sustainable Finance
Philanthropic capital alone will not solve the world’s climate issues. While proving a powerful catalytic tool to help unlock critical investments, philanthropic capital is not a large asset class in and of itself. Only commercial capital and institutional investors can make sustainable markets a reality. GAEA’s 4P model — public, private and philanthropic partnerships — addresses market failures, which helps pave the way for institutional investors to achieve green markets at scale.
As the single largest source of capital in the world, institutional investors and commercial capital have a responsibility to lead the way in deploying substantial investments in climate and nature. While we have a fiduciary duty to our investors, which requires us to carefully navigate risks and returns, public capital can be leveraged to establish successful partnerships. Four Danish pension funds collaborated with IFU – The Investment Fund for Developing Countries to establish the SDG Investment Fund: this is an example of how to bridge the gap and mobilize financing for climate and nature solutions in EMDEs. This is how we drive systemic change, transforming market inefficiencies into opportunities for sustainable growth at scale.
—Jon Johnsen, CEO, PKA
”We work with our clients to help them understand the catalytic impact they can have by using their philanthropic portfolios to de-risk and remove obstacles in the market. In turn this unlocks the commercial capital needed to scale investment into sustainable solutions. By bringing both our impact and commercial tools, we offer clients a platform to create lasting change.
—Beatriz Martin, UBS Group Executive Board Lead for Sustainability and Impact and President UBS Europe, Middle East and Africa
”Bold leadership takes centre-stage in Davos
To shift systems in half the current projected timeframe, the world will need to orchestrate a level of collaboration never before seen in human history. No government, no company, no philanthropy can do this alone. The inaugural GAEA Awards for Systems Change at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2025 will highlight such collaborative efforts. They will award multi-stakeholder partnerships driving systems-level change across key sectors, spotlighting real-world implementation and fostering cross-sector collaboration to mainstream partnership models that tackle the interconnected climate and nature challenges – all leading to true system transformation in benefit of the planet.
The GAEA Awards will celebrate the pioneering collaborations that are leading the charge to heal and restore our planet. We must summon unprecedented courage and innovation to forge a new path forward - one rooted in unity and collective action. The urgency of this mission cannot be overstated: unless we accelerate the scale and pace of transformative change, we risk not only failing our planet, but also jeopardising the future of generations to come.
—Michelle Yeoh, international actress, UNDP Goodwill Ambassador and GAEA Global Co-Chair
”Five key focus areas for systems-level change
GAEA’s Big Bets Accelerator focuses on ocean restoration, energy transition, humanitarian action, sustainable industry practices and the future of finance.
Investing in Blue Economies
The ocean is the lifeblood of our planet, regulating climate, supporting biodiversity and sustaining communities. Hence our dedication to designing a new set of global principles, to unlock investments that help preserve and regenerate this vital resource and to catalyze innovation to build an ocean economy that will protect our seas and propel us toward a nature-positive future. —Ray Dalio, Founder of Dalio Family Office and GAEA Global Co-Chair
”GAEA, OceanX and Friends of the Ocean are building a Blue Capital Collective led by GAEA’s Co-Chair and Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio, in collaboration with Prince Albert II of Monaco. The Collective is committed to revolutionizing blue finance to unlock the sustainable growth of the ocean economy. It aims to ensure that the blue economy reaches its potential value of $3 trillion by 2030 through the adoption of sustainable, innovative, ocean-positive practices that safeguard marine ecosystems and drive long-term prosperity.
From coal to clean
In partnership with KPMG and the Growald Climate Fund, Eileen Rockefeller & Paul Growald’s philanthropic climate arm, GAEA is spearheading new financing vehicles to crowd private finance into the coal transition and establishing a financier partnership to expand and implement the financing vehicles in emerging markets. The Coal-to-Clean Initiative already supports stakeholders in assessing the most beneficial strategies to repurpose coal-fired power plants while maintaining energy generation capacity. This additional component of work focuses on scaling financing solutions to support the clean energy transition in emerging economies. The initiative also aims to tap into Mobilizing Investment for Clean Energy in Emerging Economies (MICEE) - the biggest global alliance of coal asset owners, to design common solutions with public, private, philanthropic actors working together on this challenge.
Green iron catalyzer for decarbonization
Philanthropic venture Boundless Earth is working with GAEA and the First Movers Coalition to position Australia and APAC as a green iron leader, catalyzing steel decarbonization across the region with the country’s first green iron plant, which will reach financial close by 2027.
Decarbonising steel through green iron is a game-changer for sustainability in APAC, offering a transformative pathway to reduce emissions while driving economic growth. Catalytic philanthropy can be instrumental in addressing hard-to-abate sectors like steel by driving innovation, de-risking investments, and mobilising partnerships - and Australia has a unique opportunity to position itself as a leader in clean exports and catalysing the green transition in the region.
—Eytan Lenko, CEO, Boundless Earth
”Pivoting Asian philanthropy into climate
GAEA and the No.17 Foundation and Restore Nature Foundation of the Tsao Pao Chee (TPC) Group are launching a strategic collaboration led by Fred Tsao to catalyze a movement of wealth stewards, philanthropists and families interested in pivoting into climate and nature. The collaboration will leverage their portfolios to unlock a new generation of investments at the intersection of the new wellbeing economy and planetary stewardship.
To solve our climate change urgency and sustainability challenges, we need humanity to transition to a new culture. Business, as the key driver of market economy, needs to take responsibility to work with public and nonprofit sectors to drive this change toward a new definition of wellbeing and happiness economy, and a theory of change that focuses on its own business transformation and impact – One that emphasizes on solving sustainability challenges while creating the social change needed. This requires the collaboration of the business communities to work together within industries and across industries to effect supply chains and ecosystems transformation, ultimately leading to social transformation.
—Chavalit Frederick Tsao, Chairman of TPC (Tsao Pao Chee) Group
”Leveraging AI for climate and nature
In her role as GAEA Global Co-Chair, H.R.H. Princess Beatrice will collaborate with the Forum's AI Governance Alliance and pioneer a World AI x Climate Challenge to build a coalition of AI companies aiming to reshape the global impact investing ecosystem. By engaging family offices, philanthropies, governments and AI innovators, new avenues for capital to flow toward climate solutions and sustainable wealth management will be identified, scaled and implemented for transformative change.
Through this global collaborative movement, we are aiming to catalyse a signal to mobilise the untold potential of our collective AI capabilities, funding and technological resources for climate action.
—H.R.H. Princess Beatrice
”A trend to watch: Corporates unlocking additional impact dollars
Last year, 25 corporate philanthropies launched the GAEA Corporate Philanthropy Challenge, pledging $1 billion by 2030. Corporations are creating new entities to channel catalytic funds — grants, venture capital, employee contributions and pro bono tools — into climate and nature solutions. The challenge has already unlocked $1 billion, paving the way for more corporate players to fuel public and private green investments of transformative scale.
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