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Find the best ways to do good for the planet.

Effective environmentalism is an evidence-based way to do the most good for the climate, the planet, and its inhabitants. We're a movement dedicated to making the biggest impact on climate change, biodiversity, and pollution with our time, money, and career. We act on research and careful analysis.

What is effective environmentalism?

There are many good-hearted initiatives to halt climate change and reduce pollution, but many ways are ineffective or even harmful. The effective environmentalism community focuses on finding the most effective ways to tackle global environmental issues.

This led to many ideas:

  • It's critical to consider how many emissions, how much biodiversity loss, or how much pollution will be saved by an intervention.

  • We should focus on interventions that are important, tractable, and neglected.

  • It's important to take into account how climate action can benefit or harm global development, communities, and animal welfare.

  • Green lifestyle choices can reduce your personal footprint, but don't matter as much as your career, donations, or activism.

Image by Firosnv. Photography

What is the effective environmentalism community working on?

Effective environmentalism isn't one organisation, but a broad community of people working on many projects with one common goal: maximize their positive impact on the environment. Below are some examples of what the effective environmentalism movement is working on.

A plate with a cultivated sausage, mashed potatoes, peas, and gravy. Image credit: Ivy Farm

The Good Food Institute

Making plant-based and cultivated meat tastier, cheaper, and more convenient

A geyser. Photo credit: James Lee

Project Innerspace

Finding and deploying next-generation geothermal energy sources

Air quality monitoring sensor in Port Pirie, South Australia. Image for illustration purposes; unrelated to the IIT Delhi et al. project. Image credit: Michael Coghlan, CC-BY-SA 2.0

IIT Delhi, CEEW, UC Berkeley

Installing low-cost air quality sensors throughout South Asia to enforce clean air regulation

fre-sonneveld-q6n8nIrDQHE-unsplash.jpg

Energy for Growth Hub

Ending energy poverty with reliable, affordable, and clean electricity

A power plant being decommissioned. Credit: Shirokazan CC BY 2.0

Future Matters

Finding priorities for European climate change policy beyond borders

Image by micheile henderson

Giving Green

Identifying and moving funding to highly effective climate charities

Research and ideas

We highlight some of the writing, research, and practical advice that has inspired the effective environmentalism movement.

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The Effective Environmentalism Initiative and its website EffectiveEnvironmentalism.org are a project by Stichting Effectief Altruïsme Nederland (EA Netherlands, EAN). EAN is a registered charity in the Netherlands (Algemeen Nut Beogende Instelling/ANBI) with RSIN number 857171367.

 

Visiting and postal address:

Stichting Effectief Altruïsme Nederland

HNK Amsterdam Houthavens Offices

Van Diemenstraat 92

1013 NH Amsterdam

The Netherlands

Policy documents​​

Policy plan

Privacy policy

Code of conduct

Our funding
The Effective Environmentalism Initiative is funded by philanthropy. Our largest source of funding is Meta Charity Funders. We are financially and editorially independent from the initiatives that we recommend and highlight. 

Text: © Effective Environmentalism team and contributors, 2019-2024.
Licensed under CC-BY 4.0.
Share or adapt freely with attribution.

Created by humans, not by AI.

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