The Generation Foundation

The Generation Foundation

The Generation Foundation launched in 2004 as the philanthropic counterpart to Generation Investment Management, the London- and San Francisco-based sustainable investment firm co-founded by former US Vice President Al Gore and Goldman Sachs Asset Management veteran David Blood. Its mandate is to accelerate the transition to a sustainable economic system by influencing the rules, norms, and analytical frameworks of global capital markets. Unlike a conventional grant-maker, the Foundation operates as a strategic advocate, funding research and coalitions that aim to shift the cost of capital away from extractive industries and toward inclusive, low-carbon models. The Foundation advances its strategy through three primary tools: direct grants, field-building research, and targeted advocacy. Grant-making focuses on initiatives that integrate sustainability into financial decision-making, including work on climate scenario analysis, natural capital accounting, and long-term risk disclosure. Research partnerships have produced influential papers on topics such as stranded-asset risk and the economics of a just transition. Advocacy efforts concentrate on regulatory and standard-setting bodies — the Foundation has historically engaged with the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) architecture and the development of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) baseline. The work is global, with grantees and partners active across North America, Europe, and emerging markets. The Foundation's operational scale is not disclosed in terms of deployed capital or team size. It sits within the broader Generation ecosystem, which includes the public-equity and private-equity strategies of Generation Investment Management and the sustainable infrastructure platform Just Climate. This proximity gives the Foundation's research a practitioner's edge: its work on climate transition pathways directly informs the investment assumptions of one of the world's most prominent sustainability-oriented asset managers. The Foundation does not make program-related investments or take equity positions; its capital is disbursed solely as charitable grants. The Foundation's structural differentiator is its embedded position inside a multi-billion-dollar investment manager. Most philanthropic foundations operate at arm's length from capital markets. The Generation Foundation's research, by contrast, is designed to be operationalized within the portfolios of Generation Investment Management, creating a tight feedback loop between advocacy and asset allocation. The governance structure, leadership, and succession planning for the Foundation are not publicly detailed, leaving the degree of independence from the investment firm — and the specific individuals running day-to-day grant-making — an open question for external parties.