Green Mission Money: How Foundations Can Position Endowments for Climate

This report by the NewClimate Institute provides a framework for foundations to align their endowment investment strategies with climate goals, emphasizing the distinction between reducing portfolio emissions and driving real-economy decarbonisation.

• Foundations often lack coherent, climate-aligned investment strategies, frequently relying on sustainability principles that are non-binding or vague.
• Reducing emissions within an investment portfolio does not necessarily result in real-world climate impact. To achieve meaningful progress, foundations should invest in ways that support the transformation of the broader economy, which may include maintaining investments in high-emissions sectors that are essential but difficult to decarbonise to avoid slowing the transition.
• Public finance is necessary to attract private capital and bridge the investment gap in sectors where climate investments are currently perceived as having low returns or high risk.

APA

NewClimate Institute (2025). Green Mission Money: How Foundations Can Position Endowments for Climate. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/green-mission-money-how-foundations-can-position-endowments-for-climate

Chicago

NewClimate Institute. Green Mission Money: How Foundations Can Position Endowments for Climate. 2025. http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/green-mission-money-how-foundations-can-position-endowments-for-climate.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=NewClimate Institute |title=Green Mission Money: How Foundations Can Position Endowments for Climate |date=28 May 2025 |url=http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/green-mission-money-how-foundations-can-position-endowments-for-climate |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{newclimateinstitute2025green, author = {{NewClimate Institute}}, title = {{Green Mission Money: How Foundations Can Position Endowments for Climate}}, institution = {NewClimate Institute}, year = {2025}, month = may, url = {http://www.newclimate.org/resources/publications/green-mission-money-how-foundations-can-position-endowments-for-climate}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }