(4 minute read)
Published: 30 January 2026
Written by: Stephanie Santiano, Grants Manager
Here at John Ellerman Foundation, our overarching aim is to advance wellbeing for people, society and the natural world. However, we are living in an age of significant disruption and interconnected global threats which are directly impacting this aim. In our Strategy for 2025 to 2030, we identified some of the most pressing systemic issues resulting from this, and considered how we might support organisations to address them. In this series of blogs, we delve a bit deeper into these issues, and the steps we are taking as a Foundation to address them.
Where I’m from in the Pacific Northwest, one of the most familiar landmarks is Mount Rainier (also called Tahoma) whose snow-covered peak rises 4,390 meters from the ground. On clear days, the Mountain can be seen from hundreds of miles away. As much as I loved this distant, formidable sight when I was daydreaming and staring out of the windows at school, at times, it filled me with worry. Although the mountain has not had any recorded eruptions since the 1800s, it is still considered to be an active stratovolcano and may erupt at any point. Though the mountain and the four other active volcanoes in Washington State have yet to erupt in any significant way in my lifetime, the potential for volcanic activity is great enough to merit a section on the Washington State Department of Natural Resources’ Emergency Preparedness webpage, alongside information on preparing for earthquakes, tsunamis and landslides. On some roads, blue and white signs highlight volcano or tsunami evacuation routes. In school, we learned how to duck under our tables if the earth ever started to shake. At home, we filled our cupboards with canned food and family packs of bottled water: emergency provisions in the event that there was no electricity or running water for a few days. Disaster was always a possibility, and we did what we could to prepare for it.
In the weeks while I was working on this post, Hurricane Melissa, a category 5 tropical cyclone, made landfall in Jamaica. There were at least 83 fatalities and over $6 billion in damage. Typhoon Fung-Wong hit the Philippines after the earlier storm Kalmaegi had already left more than 200 people dead. In mid-November, Storm Claudia brought heavy rains and flooding across Europe and the UK. While these storms seem like devastating but inevitable occurrences, driven by forces of nature largely beyond our control, we now understand that human-influenced climate change is a factor in intensifying the intensity of meteorological phenomena like these. Warmer seas add more fuel to developing hurricanes and typhoons as they cross oceans, exacerbating the impacts of already catastrophic events.
Beyond more destructive storms, other impacts of climate change include rising sea levels, more frequent droughts and wildfires, and nature loss. Alongside this, the burning of fossil fuels that contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases also worsen air pollution, leading to poor health outcomes including premature deaths. Sometimes, disasters aren’t always as obvious as the boom of an erupting volcano. They’re things that are already bad becoming worse.
As the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution continues unfolding around us, I feel much like I did when I was a child looking at the mountain, anxiously wondering what would come after this apocalypse. After a year of record heat and drought, farmers have reported falls in grain production. Raw sewage continues to pollute our rivers. Around 30,000 deaths per year are linked to long-term exposure to air pollution in the UK. To borrow the framing of Franny Choi’s poem, “The World Keeps Ending, and the World Goes On”, what if the apocalypse isn’t a single event but a series of ongoing tragedies, the edges of each one blurring into the next?
Earlier this autumn, I participated in Earth Funding Lab’s Basecamp Programme, which is part of the Environmental Funders Network’s work programme. In this space, I connected with other people working in the philanthropic sector to explore how we can support economies in service of life in a time where the world is facing a complex knot of numerous challenges. In one session, we heard from Andy Middleton, Founder and Managing Director of TYF Group and a strategy and policy innovation specialist at Now Partners Foundation. TYF connects people to nature through coasteering experiences. Though climbing around wet rocks wearing whitewater rafting equipment may be a great adventure, it is not without its perils, and Andy reflected on the necessary planning for participants to manage safety and risk in these situations. He then raised the subject of the potential sea level rise on the east coast of the UK in a few decades’ time and how prepared communities in these affected areas are to manage safety and risk with the challenge ahead. He asked, What might it mean to be ready?
I thought about the volcano and tsunami evacuation routes along the highways back home. When I was growing up there, I had never personally experienced a volcanic eruption or a tsunami yet there were plans in place and things we could do to prepare. How do we respond when we are already feeling the impacts of climate change, pollution and nature loss? How do we prepare for what comes next?
When I try to answer this question from an individual perspective, the task ahead feels large and overwhelming, too much for one person to carry…because it is all of those things. I recognise much of this writing so far has been quite doom-and-gloom, but despite much cause for despair, my work at John Ellerman Foundation offers me opportunities to meet so many people and organisations who have the experience, knowledge and commitment to proactively address the challenges we are facing at a systemic level.
Our strategy for 2025 to 2030, launched in June 2025, reflects the Foundation’s understanding that we are well positioned to support organisations focused on this systemic work—what we refer to as ‘changemaking’—in one or more of our strategic areas including tackling the triple planetary crisis by mitigating and adapting to climate impacts, reducing pollution, and protecting and restoring nature. We also believe in the importance of taking a justice-based approach through the active involvement of individuals and communities with personal or direct experience of the issues being addressed.
For environmental organisations, we define environmental justice as the right of all people to live in a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. Tackling environmental injustice can include:
- Identifying, challenging, and developing alternatives to the systems and processes that drive the triple planetary crisis
- Contesting structural and systemic inequities - for example, the siting of polluting infrastructure in marginalised communities
- Pursuing fairness and equity in environmental governance, policy, and practice
- Ensuring that the communities most affected by environmental harm are active partners in designing and implementing solutions
- Protecting the rights and intrinsic value of nature
- Embedding these principles within legal, political, and economic systems.
The adverse effects of climate change, nature loss and pollution—and conversely, the positive impacts of a healthy environment—are not distributed equally amongst the population. Factors like race, socioeconomic status, disability and immigration status affect how marginalised communities experience environmental harms and hazards. Take, for instance, how poor air quality impacts different communities. A 2023 analysis of Greater London Authority air quality exposure and inequalities found that people living in areas of higher levels of deprivation were more likely to experience higher levels of air pollution. The same analysis found that Black and mixed-heritage people were also more likely to live in the most polluted areas in London. The same trend can be seen across wider England, where air pollution is highest in the poorest communities. When air pollution can have serious health impacts including increasing the likelihood of cancer, dementia and death, the burden of its consequences being carried by those who are already marginalised and often less likely to be the main contributors to pollution is starkly unjust. Addressing the triple planetary crisis can also involve recognising inequities like this and working to advance equity and justice for marginalised communities impacted by the crisis.
I am adding the finishing touches to this piece in early January 2026, just days into the new year. For many of us, the coming of a new year means a time for committing to changes as all the unspent days ahead of us brim with possibility. Storm Goretti is expected to bring snow and ice across the UK in the next few days, and I am reminded again of nature, its strength and its indifference to our human wishes. There is much to be done in preparation for a future (and a present) shaped by climate change, nature loss and pollution. Although the Mountain has yet to awaken, another volcano in the area, Mount Saint Helen’s, erupted in 1980 after lying dormant since the 1850s. The eruption killed 57 people and thousands of big-game animals, destroyed 200 homes and damaged infrastructure like bridges, railways and stretches of highway. Even today, the remains of some trees uprooted after the eruption can be seen floating in nearby lakes. We prepare for the possibility of the worst-case scenario, because we remember what it looked like when the disaster had happened before. As the triple planetary crisis continues unfolding around us, we must act with a sense of urgency to be ready for what comes next.
For more detail about our strategy and our other funding areas, check out our blog ‘Sharing more on our funding priorities for 2025 to 2030’ by clicking here.