FUNDERS

Roy Hunt Foundation

The Foundation

What are the current projects your foundation is working on?

1. A greenhouse gas inventory and action plan for the City of Pittsburgh through Clean Air-Cool Planet. This is part of the Pittsburgh Climate Protection Initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a collaboration among Clean Air-Cool Planet, the Green Building Alliance of Pittsburgh, and Local Governments for Sustainability.
2. The development of an evaluation template for green buildings that will be part of a High Performance Building Data Protocol and national repository. This is being done by the Green Building Alliance in Pittsburgh.
3. The expansion of the Green Blue Institute’s CleanGredients on-line database of institutional and industrial cleaning product ingredient chemicals. This database provides product developers and manufacturers verified information about the environmental and health attributes ingredients and chemicals used in the cleaning product industry.
4. An initiative to provide New England college interns majoring in environmental undergraduate and graduate programs to NPOs in the New England area. Clean Air-Cool Planet is providing the lead on this initiative.
5. We’re helping decision-makers worldwide better understand the reality of planetary resource limits though support of the Global Footprint Network. Specifically, we’re supporting research on the ecological resource use and resource capacity of nations over time. Based on all the data points per country per year, the project calculates the ecological footprints of 152 countries from 1961 to the present.

What are the foundation’s primary areas of interest?

As a family foundation that primarily supports organizations of interest to individual family members who are trustees, we fund literally all program areas from the arts to religion via small general operating support grants. However, we have initiatives in the community development, youth violence prevention and environment program areas. These grants are larger than our general grants and are intended to achieve specific outcomes. Within our environment special initiative, we fund projects in climate (currently a priority focus), land management, water management, and environmental education. We look for projects that address root causes of environmental problems.

What makes your foundation unique?

We’re a family foundation. Trustees are family members spanning 3 generations and diverse points of view. Since the Foundation was founded in part as a vehicle to keep the family together, grant-making decisions are by consensus, which involves spirited debate.

Are you working on any projects that you need collaboration on from other funders? If so, please describe the project.

The Green Building Alliance’s High Performance Building Data Protocol is a large project designed to provide easily-gathered and comprehensive clearing house quantitative support (hard data) on the effectiveness and bottom line payoff of green buildings. While smaller more complicated academic databases may exist here and there, this initiative will be national in scope. One key to its success will be the ease in collecting data from current building owners. Another key will be its validity stemming from its large size. Another key will be its ease of use, specifically by developers who want convincing data on the return from sustainable buildings.

The Foundation and EGA

Why are you a member of EGA?

For exposure to up-to-date thinking on issues and strategies, and opportunities to dialogue and collaborate on projects.

How has EGA affected or enhanced your work in the environmental field?

Through exposure to experts in the environmental field and foundation staff who are dedicated only to environmental issues, the EGA has provided us with excellent information to inform our grant-making decisions.

Please describe how the environmental philanthropy field has changed since you first started in the field.

We’re seeing more of a systems approach to solutions. Also, social justice imperatives and market-driven approaches corresponding to business needs increasingly are being integrated into the spectrum of sustainability solutions.

Profile Completed By: Beatrice C. Carter and Marion Hunt-Badiner
Title: Executive Director and Trustee

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