Benioffs, Salesforce commit $300 million to ecosystem, climate justice
Salesforce, Salesforce chair and CEO Marc Benioff, and his wife, Lynne, have announced commitments totaling $300 million in support of ecosystem restoration and climate justice.
The commitments include $200 million from the Benioffs in new climate investments toward reforestation and restoration efforts — $100 million to establish the Benioff TIME Tree Fund and $100 million in investments from TIME Ventures, the couple's investment fund. The Benioff TIME Tree Fund will focus on Indigenous and community-based forest management and efforts to mitigate the increasing impacts of climate change on the most at-risk communities and natural ecosystems in emerging and developing countries. Since 2016, the Benioffs have made $68 million in climate-related philanthropic contributions; in January 2020, they helped establish 1t.org, a global movement with the goal to conserve, restore, and grow a trillion trees by the end of the decade.
Over the next ten years, Salesforce will provide $100 million in grants to nonprofits working on ecosystem restoration and climate justice, donate technology through the Power of Us program, and enable volunteers to deliver 2.5 million volunteer hours to organizations focused on climate action. A net zero company across its value chain, Salesforce is among the founders of 1t.org and has funded more than forty million trees toward its goal of one hundred million.
"We need to apply every strategy possible to protect and preserve our planet. We must accelerate the world's largest businesses to net zero as part of reducing global emissions by half by 2030; sequester a hundred gigatons of carbon through restoring, conserving, and growing one trillion trees; and energize an ecopreneur revolution to develop new technologies that will expedite the path to a decarbonized planet," said Benioff. "Every country, company, community, and person has a responsibility to act now — the cost of failing to address this global threat will be catastrophic. Our generation will be judged by the actions we take on climate change today."
