Our story
About Us
The Drawdown Fund was inspired by the solutions outlined in Paul Hawken's New York Times Best Seller, "Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming." The Fund was founded in 2018 by Paul Hawken and Erik Snyder to scale existing market-based solutions to reverse global warming. Paul and Erik were compelled to build the Drawdown Fund given their shared vision of a better world for our children and their belief in humanity’s ability to solve our greatest challenges.
Today, total greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have surpassed 490 parts per million and continue to rise. Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have never been higher than 300 parts per million in the last 400,000 years. At that time, sea levels were 16ft higher and 75% of the earth that we populate was underwater. With human population expected to grow another 50% by 2050 and GDP per capita to increase 25% by 2025, macro trends will further strain our planet’s resources and are likely to accelerate the pace of human-induced climate change.
Despite whatever negative news may exist, Paul, Erik, and the Drawdown team remain optimistic. Recognizing the urgency, we believe that the greatest challenges facing humanity are also our greatest opportunities. We are seeing more and more growth stage companies rising to the challenges posed by climate change. With the right community of investors, aligned stakeholders, and fearless entrepreneurs, we are confident that we can demonstrate the most attractive business case for climate impact yet. We hope you will join us.
Guiding values
At the Drawdown Fund, we are creating a different kind of investment firm rooted in our core values:
We love to learn
We are a learning organization, innately curious, and believe we have something to learn from everyone.
We think and act for the long term
Short-term thinking has led us to where we are and only long-term thinking can get us out. We’re in it for the long-game and are not afraid to think differently and challenge the status quo.
We are remarkably transparent
Transparency creates trust and openness. We seek transparency in every way possible that does not impede on personal privacy or confidentiality.
We have an entrepreneurial spirit
Drawdown’s Founders have collectively started over 20 companies. We are investors with an operator’s bias. We can relate and empathize with the challenges any partner company may face.
We build community
Tackling the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced won’t be easy and will require unprecedented collaboration. We aim to assemble the most collaborative community of investors, business leaders, researchers, suppliers, and climate leaders necessary to help our entrepreneurs excel.
We prioritize ruthlessly and use metrics
If everything is important, then nothing is important. We are exceptionally thoughtful about how we prioritize our time and energy. We rely on methodical, detailed data and analysis to inform almost every decision in an objective manner.
