Healthy Soils to Cool The Planet - A Philanthropic Action Guide

Wondering how philanthropy can help cool the planet? This guide gives an overview of the opportunities and value in supporting land-based initiatives for carbon sequestration. To download the guide, click here.

About The Guide

This guide focuses on philanthropic and investment opportunities to promote healthy soils and soil carbon sequestration (SCS) primarily through changes
in agricultural practices in the United States and globally. It was produced by Breakthrough Strategies & Solutions, a consulting firm based in Takoma Park, Maryland. A team of six consultants at Breakthrough Strategies interviewed 48 experts and practitioners and conducted an in-depth online survey of an additional 65 individuals, including policy experts, farmers, NGO leaders, philanthropists, private sector leaders, and government officials.

Promising new research, policies, financing instruments, and practices on soil organic carbon (SOC) have surfaced just in the last eighteen months. The attention given to land-based solutions at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September 2018 was pronounced and the IPCC 1.5°C report released in October 2018 called for large-scale carbon removal through agriculture and other lands. This guide focuses primarily on agricultural soil carbon removal, but protection and restoration of forests, wetlands, coastal ecosystems, and grasslands are also essential for meeting climate action and sustainable development goals. We have included specific grant recommendations in the body of the guide to speed philanthropic action. Additional, equally important, grant recommendations can be found in the appendix of our online guide where grant recommendations and resources will be periodically updated. These are sample investment opportunities only and many worthy groups were unable to be included.

Published February, 2019, by Betsy Taylor, President, Breakthrough Strategies and Solutions.