Environment Programme
Safeguarding our future by restoring our connection to nature, and changing the ways we feed and fuel our world
Overview
We have a responsibility to take care of our planet for future generations. We have a lot of work to do: we face a climate emergency, our natural life support systems are collapsing, and inequality is tearing at our social fabric. We have just ten years to reduce climate pollution by half and arrest the damage caused by using fossil fuels indiscriminately, bulldozing our forests, pouring plastics into our oceans, and trading endangered species into extinction.
There is still time to act. The actions we take today can revive the planet’s health for the future. Philanthropy, civil society, business, and political leaders are starting to come together to define a shared vision to repair the damage we have done to our home. We can build from the bottom up to ensure that our solutions are inclusive, fair, and lasting. And, we can ignite hope and catalyse change that restores our connection to nature and heals our planet’s health.
In response to the lessons learned from the recent evaluations of our successes and failures, from the wisdom of our partners, and from the teachings of the Covid-19 pandemic, our five-year strategy (2021-2026) focuses on safeguarding our future by restoring our connection to nature, and changing the ways we feed and fuel our world.
Programme strategy paper
In this strategy summary paper you can read about the Environment Programme’s five-year strategy (2021-2026) and the focuses on safeguarding our future by restoring our connection to nature, and changing the ways we feed and fuel our world.
Our three systems
The new strategy has evolved from a sectoral approach, which focused on climate, marine, and wildlife trade and conservation, to a global systems transformation approach. We have chosen to focus on three systems that present the greatest transformative opportunities: Energy, Food, and Natural Security. Each of these systems is vital to our future as a human species and the global commons upon which we all depend. You can find out more about each system below.
Changing how we fuel our world
Our pace in reducing dependence on fossil fuels has been unacceptably slow but the trend toward clean power is accelerating in exciting ways.
Recognising the need to cut fossil fuel use in half by 2030 and to zero by 2050, we will support organisations and diverse movements working to accelerate this transition. In doing so, we will engage at the intersection of race, equity, gender rights, and climate justice. We will also support widespread efforts to change the cultural narrative about the acceptability of fossil fuels.
In the energy system, our work will focus on six areas: oil, gas, plastics and petrochemicals, clean power, transport, and sustainable cities. We will fund efforts to catalyse the deployment of clean energy technologies, supporting the transition away from coal, oil, and gas. We will continue to support our partners’ work in Europe, India, China, Southeast Asia, and Brazil. We will complement our funding efforts with dedicated campaigns to end offshore oil and gas exploration and rapidly reduce pollution from aviation to systematically reduce our dependency on fossil fuels. And, we will enable efforts to eliminate the mountains of unnecessary single-use plastic products and reduce demand for, and oversupply of, virgin plastic.
Changing how we feed our world
Under our new strategy we will support efforts to ensure that food is harvested, processed, distributed, eaten, and disposed of in a way that promotes health, biodiversity, human rights, and animal welfare, all while staying within the boundaries of our planet’s life support systems.
Our strategy involves engaging in four areas to bring about a just, equitable, and sustainable food system: we must rebalance meat consumption, transform the wild food supply chain, and promote a real blue economy in which seafood is allowed to recover and be harvested sustainably, ensuring the food security of coastal and Indigenous communities. We will work toward increasing fisheries transparency and reducing labour rights abuses, particularly in the nations with the biggest fishing fleets and the murkiest practices.
Changing how we live with nature
Wild places, such as savannas and forests, are a form of natural security for both the wildlife and human beings that call them home. Wild places drive the Earth’s systems of regeneration. They keep life safer from pandemics and allow for the process of adaptation and evolution of life on Earth to continue. Our work and grant-making will focus on the connectivity between people and their wild places.
We will support the rich biodiversity of “living landscapes” in Southern Africa and Southeast Asia. Living landscapes is the term we use to describe a conservation approach that supports productive, resilient rural networks of people who are able to deter over-exploitation, while safeguarding wildlife and wild places. Our work in living landscapes also considers nature’s borders, such as river basins, and supports symbiotic relationships whereby community development, employment, and livelihoods can be provided while biodiversity can also thrive.
Our programme grant-making in 2022
We made 56 grants totalling USD 75.18 million
Discover our partner stories
Would you like to read more stories like this? Please visit our “Stories” page.
Watch our latest videos
Empowering communities can help create climate resilience. That is why the work of the Climate Justice Resilience Fund (CJRF) – an organisation devoted to building voice and power in communities hit first by climate change – helps empower women in India and Inuit in the artic maritime region through knowledge and skills.
Oceana is an international not-for-profit organisation dedicated to protecting and restoring the world’s oceans on a global scale. Operational for 17 years, Oceana has been supported by Oak since the start. Led by CEO Andrew Sharpless, it has an innovative way of working that has proved both efficient and effective, garnering plenty of success over the years.
Would you like to see more videos? Please visit our YouTube channel.