The Sunday Times Magazine • 57CIFF. “Humanity is aggressively destroying
the world with climate change and there is
an urgent need for us all to wake up to this
fact,” he said at the time.
CIFF has £628 million of grant
commitments on its books for combating
climate change, but Hohn has said much
more is required. “Less than 1 per cent of
philanthropic money is going into climate
change, of which half is in the US even
though the US is only 20 per cent of global
emissions, so we need to see a massive step
up ... we really need other philanthropists
to come in and increase the effort.”
To this end CIFF teamed up with more
than 30 foundations at the Climate
Ambition Summit in December 2020 to
invest $6 billion in climate solutions by 2025.
Calling climate change “the defining issue
of our generation”, Hohn is also making it
central to his investment decisions. He has
GETTY IMAGESturned his laser focus on the role played by
global finance in the climate crisis. In March
he urged shareholders to vote against bank
directors involved in “greenwashing” and
who lobby against climate action.
Other climate activists on the Rich List
include Johan Eliasch, the billionaire former
chief executive of the sporting goods
company Head, who has bought up swathes
of the Amazon rainforest. Eliasch, who
served as special representative for
deforestation and clean energy during
Gordon Brown’s premiership, has pumped
£500 million into saving the Amazon over
the past 20 years. Today he owns 400,000
acres of rainforest in Amazonas, northwest
Brazil, an area that is home to about 50,000
people and is now protected from illegal
logging and burning. “We live in a connected
world,” Eliasch says. “If you cut down the
rainforest, rain falls in the wrong places. That
causes flooding and food and water security
issues. Flooding causes migration of people,See the full list online at thesundaytimes.co.uk/richlistTHE SUNDAY TIMES GIVING LIST
Ranked by the proportion of wealth given or generated for charity1 Sir Chris Hohn 2,600 347.4 13.36 Environment, children, gender equality
2 Alan Parker 2,800 251 8.97 Environment, child safety, housing, women
3 Sir Paul Marshall 680 58.9 8.66 Disabled children, education, community
4 Lord Edmiston 763 55.1 7.22 Christian
5 Sir Lewis Hamilton 300 20 6.68 Youth, education, employment
6 Henry Engelhardt* 956 61.5 6.43 Wales, children, medical, education
7 Ian Wace 680 42.3 6.22 Children, young people, Navy heritage, Covid
8 Mo Salah 41 2.5 6.03 Health
9 Sir Tom Hunter 700 40.3 5.76 Covid, community, education, social, children
10 Sir Michael Moritz
and Harriet Heyman 4,000 185.2 4.63 Education, community, environment, medical
11 Stormzy 26 1.2 4.58 Social inclusion
12 Steve Morgan 789 35.9 4.55 Covid, children, social, NW England
13 Lord Rothschild* 1,083 44.7 4.13 Jewish culture and heritage, education, arts
14 Sir Elton John 395 14.7 3.73 HIV/Aids, culture, arts, music
15= Joanne Rowling 850 24.9 2.93 Children, women
15= Patricia Thompson* 869 25.4 2.93 Medical, children, arts, culture, horse racing
17 Yan Huo 1,367 28.8 2.11 Education, Covid, arts
18 Marit, Lisbet, Sigrid Environment, culture, youth,
and Hans Rausing 9,490 161.6 1.93 human rights, women
19 Lord Laidlow 759 13.3 1.76 Education, environment
20 John Shaw and
Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw* 2,496 40.2 1.61 Education, healthcare, sustainability
21 Sir Brian Souter and
Dame Ann Gloag 696 10.9 1.56 Social, religious, humanitarian, drug abuse
22 Trond Mohn and
Marit Mohn Westlake 1,245 18.3 1.47 Children, youth mental health, arts
23 Gerald Ronson* 887 12.5 1.4 Medical, arts, education, Jewish community
24= Guy, George, Alannah
and Galen Weston 13,500 182.5 1.35 Covid, education, arts, welfare, youth
24= John Armitage 1,200 16.1 1.35 Children, education, medical, arts, ex-offenders* and familyWealth (£m)Donations (£m)Giving Index (%) Main beneficiariesand migration causes conflict. It is cause
and effect. We have about four billion years
before the sun usurps planet Earth, so we
have plenty of time left — let’s not ruin it.”
To that end the Duke and Duchess of
Cambridge’s Earthshot Prize was launched
in October 2020 to recognise and award
50 or more environmental projects with
£1 million each over the next ten years.
Scotland’s largest private landowner, the
Danish billionaire Anders Povlsen, has
reportedly provided £1 million to the fund.
The rise of green philanthropy has been
years in the making, says Neil Heslop, the
chief executive of the Charities Aid
Foundation, our partner in producing the
Giving List. “It is about money,” Heslop says,
“but it is also about using the individual’s
platform to exert influence. Who would
have thought that a hedge fund manager
like Chris Hohn would be one of the largest
benefactors of Extinction Rebellion?”➤