The Rockefeller Foundation says it will invest $1 billion towards tackling the climate crisis and ensuring it benefits marginalised communities, as part of a wider shift towards sustainable development goals (SDGs). 

It is the first time that the foundation is addressing SDGs as part of its philanthropic endeavours for the first time in its 110-year history. 

“The strategy is designed around a simple idea: humanity does not have to choose between addressing climate change and advancing human opportunity, we simply have to work in new ways and at a bigger scale and with new people and in new places to make sure everyone cannot just survive the climate crisis but thrive,” said Rajiv Shah, president of the Rockefeller Foundation. 

The Foundation’s philanthropic history began with an original endowment of $100 million from John Rockefeller, founder of Standard Oil, which once controlled more than 90 per cent of petroleum production in the United States. 

The US-based foundation said it will provide “additional resources, advocacy, and strategic support” to a series of Global Energy Alliance for People and Planet (GEAPP) initiatives, co-launched with the IKEA Foundation and Bezos Earth Fund during the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2021 (COP26). 

It has laid out further plans to provide $5 million towards the global Battery Energy Storage Systems Consortium, with the aim of bringing reliable electricity access to more than three billion people globally, integrating renewable energy and unlocking storage capacity for peak demands. 

$1 million is promised to kickstart the development of 1,000 grids in Zambia over the next three to five years, with the aim of reaching roughly one million people and businesses. 

The SDGs are the international community’s flagship for social, economic and environmental welfare. Read our latest issue tackling SDGs head on, looking at the pros and cons.

Shafi Musaddique is news editor at Alliance magazine.