Climate Breakthrough Award

09/22/2026

We're excited to have Delphine Lévi Alvarès as part of the 2026 cohort of the Climate Breakthrough Award program, announced last week, and to support her ambitious new initiative to tackle petrochemicals.

Through our program, Delphine (based in France) will build the first coordinated global effort to reduce the world’s dependence on petrochemicals—the plastics, fertilizers, pesticides, and synthetic materials made from oil and gas—and make alternatives imaginable, practical, and scalable.

The challenge is immense. Petrochemicals already account for 14 percent of global oil consumption, 8 percent of natural gas, and 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. As demand for fossil fuels declines elsewhere, Delphine calls petrochemicals “the lifeline for the industry’s financiers,” a sector that could drive up to half of oil demand growth by mid-century.

Despite a growing number of organizations touching this issue, no one has pulled that work into a unified global effort. Filling that gap is what Delphine plans to pursue.

Currently a campaign coordinator at Center for International Environmental Law (Center for International Environmental Law), Delphine measures success collectively, not individually. “A successful collective implementation of a jointly nurtured vision across movements and constituencies for how the world could look in a fossil-free economy will help bring back freedom and power to people and communities,” she says.

We are providing Delphine with the space, flexibility, and resources to develop, launch, and expand their new initiatives, including a $4 million multiyear funding package for each—the largest climate award for individuals. Our support is designed to give her the freedom to think boldly, innovate, and pursue the changes needed to swiftly and justly close the gap between the world today and a sustainable future.

09/15/2026

07/08/2026

What makes the Climate Breakthrough Award program different? It starts with how we select our amazing awardees.

Executive Director Savanna Ferguson shares the philosophy behind the "rigorous, extensive, and intentional" selection process for the program.

"Frankly, it's quite a big deal."

07/01/2026

🗓️ Mark your calendars, set your alarms ⏰!

On September 15, we will announce the 2026 cohort of the Climate Breakthrough Award program. With our support, these social innovators will develop, launch, and scale their boldest new initiatives for large-scale policy, economic, and social transformation to address the climate crisis.

The Climate Breakthrough Award program uniquely blends the large-scale innovation focus of institutions known for pursuing inventions, like DARPA and ARPA-E, with the nimble and entrepreneurial spirit of startup incubators and venture capital. We provide Awardees with $4 million—the largest for individuals—in multiyear, flexible, non-directive funding along with other critical resources.

Visit our website and sign up for our newsletter to get the news delivered straight to your inbox and learn more about our climate philanthropy.

05/04/2026

They came, they saw, they broke through!

A huge shoutout to our three Awardees for completing their tenure in the Climate Breakthrough Award program: Kathrin Gutmann, Denise Fairchild and Sara Jane Ahmed, all part of the 2021 cohort.

But here’s the thing: being a Climate Breakthrough Awardee is forever. While their “official” time with us has ended, they remain part of a distinguished, global community of bold strategists committed to innovative and transformative work to resolve the climate crisis.

We can’t wait to see how they build on what they’ve launched through our program and scale it even further.

Kathrin launched as a coalition-driven campaign to transform Europe’s power sector to 100% renewable energy. The goal isn't just about changing energy sources, but reshaping Europe’s relationship with energy consumption and production as energy costs push many Europeans into potential poverty and climate impacts become more severe.

Sara expanded the then-early-stage Climate Prosperity Plans initiative, building customized financial and economic models for climate-vulnerable countries. CPPs offer a pathway for vulnerable nations to move beyond dependence on foreign aid. If successful, this approach could fundamentally reshape how climate-vulnerable nations participate in the global economy, transforming them from aid recipients to investment destinations.

Denise launched , a BIPOC-led, coordinated, values-driven (vs. technology-driven) initiative to reduce the production and consumption of non-essential consumer products and their associated GHG emissions. Rather than treating reduced consumption as a sacrifice, the initiative frames it as an opportunity to heal both communities and the planet. It's a return to values of sufficiency, interdependence, and harmony with nature that they say many Indigenous cultures have long embraced.

04/22/2026

Happy . Let’s bet big, let’s break through!

For we are celebrating the brilliance of Climate Breakthrough Awardees and the transformative climate action they have launched and scaled through our Climate Breakthrough Award program.

04/17/2026

What’s a seven letter word for bold vision? A W A R D E E.

We are celebrating the brilliance of Climate Breakthrough Awardees and the transformative climate action they have launched and scaled through our Climate Breakthrough Award program.

We’re often asked, why do we invite all our Awardees (past and present) together every year? They’re working on different issues in different parts of the world, engaging with different communities, decisionmakers, and industries, and using disparate approaches in their strategies.

What does an Awardee working on an international treaty have in common with someone advancing largescale renewable energy investments in emerging economies? What does a fossil fuel campaigner share with an ecologist rewilding the Arctic? How much can they have in common?

What we’ve discovered is that they have an enormous amount in common and get a lot out of being in one another’s company. They are people of exceptional ambition who also possess the rare ability to turn those bold ideas into reality. And they are all laser-focused on solving the same problem: how do we end the climate crisis?

Giving people like that the opportunity to engage one another provides them with something we all need: peers. Awardees quickly see in one another that shared drive, boldness, and uncommon capability. And very often they find that they are facing the same challenges and questions as they pursue their breakthrough ideas.

In engaging with each other they also discover that their collective potential for impact is greater than the sum of their individual work.

And that changes everything.

04/15/2026

⬅️ Right to left. Let’s break through.

Right-to-left thinking requires us to bring boldness and ambition that matches the scale of the problems we’re working to solve. We start with the future we need and work backward to figure out what must begin today.

What if the world had a global fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty? Imagine if low-carbon options were readily available, we wouldn’t be making pizza boxes out of endangered trees. Imagine if clean energy and nature protection were no longer a partisan issue in rural America. What if fossil fuel projects couldn’t get insurance to move forward? What would it actually mean to have a stable climate by 2060?

We’re celebrating the brilliance of Climate Breakthrough Awardees and the transformative climate action they have launched and scaled through our Climate Breakthrough Award program.

03/26/2026

Fear less. Let’s break through.

Breakthrough work starts with big thinking and pushes through setbacks. We’re celebrating the brilliance of Climate Breakthrough Awardees and the transformative climate action they have launched and scaled through our Climate Breakthrough Award program.