Meet the young Australians using their inheritance to save the planet

What would you do if you had millions of dollars in family wealth at your disposal? For an increasing number of younger Australians, the answer is obvious: tackle the climate crisis.

The turning point for Hannah Skrzynski, 37, came when her eldest child had “a bit of an existential crisis” a few years ago, at age 7.

Hannah Skrzynski with children Hugo Hutchinson, 9, and Mia Hutchinson, 7, at their home in Bondi. Her children’s concerns about climate change were a turning point for the board director of Groundswell.Credit: Dion Georgopoulos

“They’d been learning about climate change [at school], and he came home, and he burst into tears and said, ‘it’s over, you can’t fix it now, it’s too late’,” she said.

“We had this big talk and I was saying ‘no, there are strategies’. And he said, ‘well, what are we doing? What are you doing?’ It was such a direct question and I wanted to be able to answer it.”

Bondi-based Skrzynski and her sister formally joined their family’s charitable foundation in 2015 and have steered it to focus on climate action alongside its traditional human rights focus.

Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn, 31, this month announced plans to recruit 50 fellow citizens to decide how to give away €25 million ($42 million), reportedly most of her inheritance.

Austrian heiress Marlene Engelhorn.Credit: New York Times

Groundswell chief executive Arielle Gamble said the Skrzynski family’s shift to climate giving was a more typical outcome as younger generations inherit or take the reins of family wealth.

“Every wealth and philanthropic manager around Australia would cite a major trend of younger generations who are all incredibly climate alarmed and wanting to give philanthropically to climate solutions,” Gamble said.

“There’s definitely a massive generational shift. We’re seeing young people inheriting wealth, or with self-made wealth, stepping in and going ‘what can I do with this?’”

The money is flowing through both “impact investing”, in which investors fund renewable energy and other climate projects through business, and also philanthropy to fund advocacy for better climate policy.

Wealthy philanthropists who focus on the environment include high-profile names such as Simon Holmes a Court, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and Graeme Wood, but they are a minority. Philanthropy Australia figures suggest only 5 per cent of donations from charitable foundations go to environmental causes, including everything from animal welfare to climate.

In what is known as the “great wealth transfer”, as much as $US68 trillion ($103 trillion) globally is set to be passed down through inheritance in the next 20 to 30 years. Australian estimates suggest $1.1 trillion will flow from the Baby Boomer generation on to their Generation X and Millennial family members between 2021 and 2031, increasing to $2.6 trillion by 2040.

People in their 20s and 30s are also increasingly stepping up as trustees of Australia’s 2200 private ancillary funds (the main vehicle for family charitable foundations), giving them a direct say over where the money goes.

Martin Green, 30, co-chair of Philanthropy Australia’s New Gen Network for philanthropists in their 20s and 30s, said climate action was a growing focus for this cohort.

Max Carter and his sister Mooey (inset) are spending their inheritances on climate action through philanthropy and impact investing.Credit: Chris Hopkins

“About 90 per cent of the young philanthropists I speak to say that this is urgent, there’s no money going to it, and this is what we need to do right now,” Green said.

Green, who grew up in Manly, is an example of the trend. Along with his parents and sister, he runs a foundation focused on climate and First Nations justice.

Siblings Max and Mooey Carter, who grew up in Hawthorn East in Melbourne, have similarly steered their family foundation from its original focus on health to climate and First Nations issues.

Mooey Carter, 30, said climate change resonated as an issue for her because of childhood holidays in the Great Barrier Reef on the family’s boat.

“The connection we had with the reef and the devastation that has been up there in the last 10 years or so was probably a key driver for me,” Carter said.

“With climate change, there’s such a need to act now. With other ongoing issues … there’s not that time pressure, but with climate it could be the end of humanity.”

This year, Groundswell is starting a major giving circle for funders who can commit at least $50,000 a year to a pooled fund to back climate action projects.

The organisation, established in 2020 by Gamble, Clare Herschell, and Anna Rose, has already developed the model through its regular giving circle, which has 750 members who donate a minimum of $20 a week. Groundswell does the due diligence on potential projects and puts it to a vote.

The old-school model of philanthropy for wealthy families was to set up a foundation and invest the funds to grow the overall assets, while giving away the legal minimum of 5 per cent a year to charitable causes. Gamble said many climate philanthropists are switching to a “spend-down strategy” to deploy funds as quickly as possible.

Stephen Pfeiffer is encouraging other wealthy people to consider impact investing and climate philanthropy.Credit: Janie Barrett

This is the plan for Stephen Pfeiffer, 41, who will be a founding member of the major giving circle.

“If we just give out little bits and maintain that wealth to grow over decades, we may get to a situation where the future society is no longer functioning enough for that wealth to even be relevant to spend or use,” Pfeiffer says.

He is using most of his seven-figure inheritance on climate action, including donating more than $1.5 million over three years to climate causes and as an “angel investor”, or initial funder for climate start-ups.

Pfeiffer came into money from a few events, including the winding-up of a family business in the early days of a career as a high school teacher. He was living off his salary, while his inheritance was invested and largely “out of sight, out of mind”, until shocked into action by the Black Summer bushfires.

He lives a “minimalist lifestyle” in a small, rented apartment in inner-city Sydney while focusing on climate investing and philanthropy full time.

“I probably wouldn’t be able to get out of bed in the morning unless I was working towards being a part of the solution,” Pfeiffer said.

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