Plastic fantastic

The introduction of a plastic bag tax at English supermarkets is starting to reap benefits. Almost £23m has been raised so far to charities. But the actual amount passed on to charities isn't clear. Morrisons, Asda and Waitrose hand all the proceeds to charity, Tesco is donating 3p minus costs, Sainsbury’s only hands over about 1p a bag. The habits of consumers have definitely changed but the long term environmental benefits are less clear.

Rockefeller to cut fossil fuel investments

As big statements go within the philanthropic world this is a big one. The charitable fund of the Rockefeller family, the Rockefeller Family Fund has announced that it will divest from fossil fuel companies. 

Citing the pressing need to reduce investing and extracting in hydrocarbons, the fund says there is no "sane rationale" for holding these investments. Of particular scorn and justification, the fund says that it will primarily divest from ExxonMobil.

The fund says: "evidence suggests that the company worked since the 1980s to confuse the public about climate change’s march, while simultaneously spending millions to fortify its own infrastructure against climate change’s destructive consequences and track new exploration opportunities as the Arctic’s ice receded."

The Rockefeller board has instructed its advisors to: “immediately eliminate holdings of ExxonMobil, and all coal, and tar sands-based companies outside the portions of the portfolio managed by third parties, and to keep exposures for these three categories of investment below 1 percent across the entire portfolio.” The financial value of these investments is unclear. Further investigation may be required here, but it may be low.

There is acknowledgment that the Rockefellers have essentially built their fortune on the oil industry, but they admit that times have moved on. The oil industry will probably scoff at this announcement. It has suffered from a massive decrease in oil revenues from lower prices, so some may see a worrying trend here. The divest campaign hasn’t had that many victories, especially amongst the charitable sector. The Wellcome Trust have declined to get on board.

http://www.rffund.org/divestment

About this blog

I currently work as a prospect researcher for a national charity, but I wanted to run a blog around the environmental sector and post some stories about philanthropic sources for environmental charities.

Given the gravity of some of the threats to the global environment, I would hope that there are many prospective donors, foundations and companies out there for this cause. But certainly in the UK, environmental causes are less supported than health, education and welfare causes.

On the face of it, there are two clear strands of philanthropy in the environmental sector: the local conservation side focused on wildlife and nature reserves; and the global challenge around turning back climate change, ending global pollution and saving endangered species.

So it can be potentially a broad subject so there may be a range of topics here. I may also post on the charity sector more generally - all of value I hope.