Canva billionaire Cameron Adams and wife Lisa Miller to ‘give away’ half their wealth to green causes

Cameron Adams and his wife Lisa Miller are giving away more than half of their $4.79bn fortune to help fund ‘urgent environmental issues’.

Cameron Adams and Lisa Miller are giving away half of their fortune.

Canva billionaire Cameron Adams and his wife Lisa Miller are giving away more than half their fortune to help fund “urgent environmental issues”, and are encouraging other businesses to do the same.

Mr Adams – whose wealth is estimated at $4.79bn, according to The List: Australia’s Richest 250 – and Ms Miller will split the commitment across The Giving Pledge and Founders Pledge.

Warren Buffett founded The Giving Pledge with Bill Gates and his ex-wife Melinda French Gates in 2010 as a mechanism for the wealthy to donate to a range of causes from health and education to disaster relief and environmental sustainability.

The decision by Mr Adams and Ms Miller comes as Canva’s valuation has surged to $US32bn, following several secondary share sales last year – making some employees instant millionaires – and Donald Trump unwinds many of Joe Biden’s green initiatives.

Canva co-founder Cameron Adams.

Mr Adams said he was fortunate that as a business leader he can think longer term, beyond four-year election cycles.

“Great business leaders always think long term. You don’t just think short term and optimise for that. You should think about where your company’s headed and how it stays sustainable and how you continue growth over decades,” Mr Adams said.

“The evidence that we are seeing from markets, whether that’s agriculture, energy etc, they’re all heading in directions that are compatible with climate change science, with what we need to do on the nature front and environment.

“I think leaders with real foresight are all heading in that direction, regardless of what governments might say.”

Ms Miller, who heads the couple’s eco-focused venture fund Wedgetail – which also offers green loans – said environmental sustainability and economic growth were not mutually exclusive.

“While there’s a lot of it happening geopolitically across the globe, I think many people are really understanding that when we’re talking about the environment, we’re actually talking about human health and the health of our communities and societies. And so it really needs to come and play a bigger role and not be excluded from economic decisions and discussions,” said Ms Miller, who is a zoologist and previously worked at the Australian Museum.

Wedgetail co-founder Lisa Miller.

And Mr Adams said giving away half their wealth to environmental causes was also extra motivation to continue to grow Canva.

“That’s one of the great things about The Giving Pledge. When you make that pledge to give half of your wealth, the wealth that you have today is a fraction of what you might have in the future.

“Canva is growing amazingly. The business is doing incredibly well, which I get to spend most of my time on. So it’s good to be able to steer that and know that as I’m growing Canva, it enables the Canva foundation, it enables Wedgetail to grow in their impact as well.”

Wedgetail has given green loans to cacao and coffee businesses in the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Colombia. It has also backed Sumday, a Tasmanian-based carbon accounting software platform; Superorganism, the first venture firm dedicated to biodiversity; and Courageous Land, which promotes large-scale reforestation and conversation via agroforestry.

Under its green loans, interest rates are lowered as companies meet contractually agreed environmental targets.

“There are green loans out there, so it’s not like it’s the most innovative model ever, but we are definitely knocking off far more basis points than most banks,” Ms Miller said.

Under The Giving Pledge and Founders Pledge commitment, the couple will give over half their wealth over the course of their life or will. Additionally, they will give 25 per cent at points of liquidity over five years.

Originally published as Canva billionaire Cameron Adams and wife Lisa Miller to ‘give away’ half their wealth to green causes