Our Giving Fund: Mitigating Climate Change in H1/2025

In the first half of 2025, around EUR 0.92 million were donated to our Giving Fund: Mitigating Climate Change (more than EUR 0.81 million from Germany and more than CHF 0.1 million from Switzerland).

On the recommendation of our research partner Founders Pledge, we have forwarded all funds to the newly established organization Innovation Initiative.

The problem

At the beginning of 2025, Bill Gates decided to significantly scale back his support for Breakthrough Energy, an umbrella organization aimed at promoting climate-friendly technologies. As a result, the organization’s policy team was cut. This has created a dangerous gap, as this branch of Breakthrough Energy had been a central anchor for coordinating and advancing clean-energy innovation in the United States as well as Europe. Specifically, there was a risk that the implementation of groundbreaking U.S. climate legislation such as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act would stall. The momentum needed to develop the next generation of energy innovations could have been lost.

The solution

To continue the important work of Breakthrough Energy, part of the former policy team founded the Innovation Initiative to preserve knowledge already gained and prevent the fragmentation of the ecosystem for developing and promoting green innovation.

The organization’s work is based on three strategic pillars:

1. Innovation in climate-neutral energy: Supporting research and development to enable the next generation of climate-neutral technologies.
   
2. Baseload-capable climate-neutral energy: Supporting projects that advance reliable, low-carbon energy sources — such as geothermal or nuclear energy.
   
3. International trade and supply chain policy: Building robust, climate-friendly supply chains and fair global trade conditions for climate-friendly technologies.

The Innovation Initiative develops a clear strategic vision for each of its three pillars and supports other nonprofit organizations in putting this vision into practice—both through direct consulting and targeted funding. Currently, it collaborates with leading energy and innovation policymakers from across the political spectrum to ensure that public investments in clean energy innovation are sustained over the long term.