Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan Take Another Step as Climate Mega-Donors. What’s Next?

It looks like we can officially call Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg climate mega-donors.

Three months after announcing $33 million in grants for carbon dioxide removal and decarbonization, last week the couple—who own a controversial 1,500-acre estate in Kaua’i—pledged $50 million over seven years to the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa for ocean and coral research related to climate change.

Unlike some of their tech billionaire brethren (see: Laurene Powell Jobs, Marc Benioff), they have not publicly unveiled a long-term commitment to the climate emergency. So it’s anyone’s guess what’s next after these two gifts, which are the first two climate grants we know of from the pair. But it seems safe to bet that there’s more in store.

What might we expect? Unlike the tech centibillionaire with the biggest climate fund of them all, Jeff Bezos, Chan and Zuckerberg have taken a somewhat familiar path with these grants, at least when it comes to tech funders. Carbon dioxide removal organizations have relied on support from the sector’s philanthropists for some time now, while big gifts to universities remain a philanthropic staple. The Amazon founder, by contrast, surprised the field by backing several underfunded environmental justice groups, though the majority of his funding to date is still flowing to the big greens.

Granted, it’s very early days for the couple. Going forward, one thing we might expect are more large gifts from virtually out of the blue. Whether it’s Zuckerberg’s infamous $100 million gift to the Newark school system, the couple’s $300 million gift for election infrastructure, or even the launch of new Facebook parent company Meta, they’ve shown a willingness to make big bets, albeit not that big, relative to an estimated $109 billion fortune.

More such moves could be welcome in climate philanthropy. Indeed, not long ago, two of the largest institutional funders in the space—David and Lucile Packard Foundation and Oak Foundation, along with the Good Energies Foundation—created a project to channel more big dollars to big ideas.

Chan and Zuckerberg’s track record also suggests any such wagers may be guided more by what interests them personally than what ideas are bubbling up from below. Yes, that’s true for most philanthropists, big and small, as personal passions often guide decisions. But hopefully, they take a lesson from missteps in climate philanthropy history—not to mention trends in the broader sector—and seek out a more bottom-up approach.

Chan and Zuckerberg’s history in Hawai’i also makes it hard to believe this pledge was not motivated at least in part by reputational concerns. As they’ve assembled their Kaua’i property through a series of multimillion-dollar land purchases, they have earned neighbors’ and Native Hawaiians ire by suing hundreds of families with historical ownership claims (they later dropped the lawsuits) and building a six-foot stone wall around the property. The couple is reportedly working on building a 35,888-square-foot mansion on the property. One law professor originally from Kaua’i described their actions as “the face of neocolonialism.”

The new pledge is the latest of several multimillion-dollar donations on the island. Chan and Zuckerberg gave $4.2 million early last year to a jobs program in the Hawaiian county where their compound is located. They granted another $4.85 million to the Kaua’i chapter of Habitat for Humanity later in 2021.

Of course, it’s also impossible to assess the couple’s philanthropy without weighing it against the impact of Zuckerberg’s day job as CEO of Meta. The platform’s documented role in spreading—and profiting from—climate denial led to The Guardian naming the 37-year-old one of “America’s top climate villains” last year. Cleaning up that mess could go a lot further than even eight-figure grants.

All of that said, Chan and Zuckerberg do deserve some praise for taking action and supporting a sector that still gets just 2% of global philanthropy. As I wrote last year, most of the wealthiest people in America have not publicly put any significant support toward battling global warming.

So what will this grant do? The largest cash gift ever made to the university, it will fund research on the impact of climate change on Hawaiian coastal waters and strategies for coral reef restoration. The university also will use the funding to expand community partnerships, support Indigenous resource management practices and train future coral scientists and ocean conservationists.

“This transformative gift will enable our world-class experts to accelerate conservation research for the benefit of Hawai’i and the world,” said university President David Lassner in a statement. “The clock is ticking, and we must fast-track not only our understanding of marine ecosystems and the impacts of climate change, but the actions we must take to reverse the devastation underway.”

The gift comes from the couple themselves, and not the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the philanthropic LLC through which they conduct most of their grantmaking. But a spokesperson confirmed, albeit without giving details, that CZI was at least somewhat involved: The initiative “helps advance the Chan Zuckerberg family’s personal giving priorities, including this gift” to the University of Hawaiʻi, according to a statement shared with IP.

There is one other intriguing detail in Chan and Zuckerberg’s expanding presence on the archipelago. The Ko’olau Ranch, their nickname for their sprawling compound, is reportedly a working agricultural operation. It includes an organic farm that grows ginger, turmeric and papaya. It’s also aiming to support wildlife conservation.

If the couple figures what’s good for them is good for the world, perhaps we’ll see a jump from supporting research and technological solutions to conservation and agricultural approaches to climate change.

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