Environment Programs

In the early 1990s the Board of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation decided to focus a portion of their grant making on environmental issues based on concern for the state of the environment to be inherited by future generations. The Board directed its focus towards building consensus in the development and implementation of integrated environmental, economic and social policy as tools to achieve sustainable environmental solutions. Throughout the 1990s, the Foundation’s grant making went to initiatives that fostered collaborative development of environmental use and protection strategies and encouraged sustainable building and design practices.

By the end of the decade, the Foundation had identified its niche in building lasting and sustainable environmental solutions by promoting cross-sector communication and collaborative decision-making, and in facilitating market-based solutions that address systematic environmental problems.  At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Board began their active engagement with the environmental issues of global warming and the preservation of open space.

The Foundation’s Climate Change initiative began in 2001 with a focus on Connecticut as the Board realized the significant impact of global warming. At first, the Foundation focused on the state of Connecticut with its unique traits in key sectors (transportation, renewables, municipalities) to demonstrate tangible and replicable progress that could be a model for climate change action in other states. Our Climate Change initiative has since grown beyond Connecticut shifting our focus to the Northeast region and the Southeastern Atlantic coastal states where we support strategies for addressing global warming at the state level. The Foundation has a long-term goal of empowering states to be integral partners in regional campaigns designed to spur federal action and policy.

In 2001 the Board began discussions on how to promote proactive strategic planning and community development at the local level. These conversations led to the formation of the Foundation’s Open Space program. While first looking at opportunities nationally to promote land conservation, the Foundation recognized the need to focus its limited resources on one geographic region and decided to focus on the Connecticut River Watershed.  In this region the Foundation supports land conservation organizations in their communications efforts. Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation grants should allow these organizations to be more effective in working collaboratively with other regional organizations, and to communicate with and influence decision makers on state and regional open space preservation goals.

For additional information about the Foundation’s current work in our Environment Program, please see our News Center.

For additional information about the Foundation’s previous work in our Environment Program, please see our Biennial Report.