The Family Office Starter Pack
From "What is a Family Office?" to "How can we solve uncertainty?"
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Skander here.
Tomorrow, Wednesday 18th, at 9am PST, 18:00 CEST we are organising an open fireside on the State of Family Offices, with Family Offices and experts on Family Offices, and everything in between. Join here:
Climate solutions need more than great ideas: they need capital with conviction. Public finance is slow, venture capital is selective, and philanthropy (while vital) often avoids the messy infrastructure and ops. So what about private wealth?
Enter the family office. This starter pack is your cheat-sheet on how family offices (FOs) are getting involved in climate action and how they could supercharge it.
We’ve organized this pack by knowledge level, so whether you’re hearing the term “family office” for the first time or you’re deep in the game figuring out next steps, there’s something here for you.
🌊 Let’s dive in
Family Offices 101 & Why They Matter for Climate
![Cover Image for [Open Climate] Unlocking Legacy: Family Offices & Climate](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!x1XX!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fd3623d21-51e7-40ca-830e-78b9c28520c4_800x800.jpeg "Cover Image for [Open Climate] Unlocking Legacy: Family Offices & Climate")
What is a Family Office?
If you’ve never heard of FOs, start with the basics. A family office is essentially a privately-held company that manages the investments and wealth of an affluent family. Think of it as a mini financial institution devoted to one (sometimes multiple) family’s legacy and financial goals. These range from single-family offices (serving one ultra-wealthy family) to multi-family offices (serving several families), and they handle everything from portfolio management to philanthropy. There are an estimated 4,500+ family offices worldwide managing around $6 trillion in assets – a massive pool of capital.
The Next-Gen Push for Climate
Why are family offices suddenly in climate conversations? In short, the kids are at the table. Younger members of wealthy families are increasingly pushing their elders to align the family wealth with their values – especially on climate change. Case in point: just months after the 2015 Paris Agreement, Giorgiana Notarbartolo (an heir of Italy’s Marzotto dynasty) urged her family to rethink their investments with environmental and social issues in mindbluehaveninitiative.com.
This generational shift is reaching a tipping point: many family offices are warming up to climate action as a core part of their strategy, driven by a mix of concern for the planet and the desire to preserve wealth for the long haul. C
As one family office leader put it, the climate space “is very broad, and it’s complicated”, but sitting it out is no longer an option if you want your fortune to survive and your legacy to mean something.
Family offices have a few superpowers that set them apart from other investors. For one, they often have patience and flexibility that public markets or traditional funds lack. They’re managing multi-generational wealth, which means they can afford to take bets on long-term solutions and wait a decade or more for investments to bear fruit.
(Try asking a typical VC to wait 10+ years – not gonna happen.) They’re also not beholden to quarterly earnings reports or short-term LP pressure. This makes them ideal for backing big climate ideas that might be too early, too risky, or too “infrastructure-y” for other financiers.
In sum, family offices can bring patient, mission-driven capital to the climate fight, plugging a critical gap.
Beginner: Why should Family Offices care
“Climate Concerns Reaching ‘Tipping Point’ for Family Offices” (Financial Times, 2020) – A quick case study on generational change.
This article shows how a 36-year-old family heir rallied her 100-person family network (descendants of an Italian textile tycoon) to steer significant wealth toward climate-friendly investments post-Paris Agreement.
👉 https://www.ft.com/content/692a8f67-325a-4e93-ac8a-6717c011d0b3
“Secret Club for Billionaires Who Care About Climate” (Bloomberg/ThePrint, 2020)
When France’s Mulliez family (owners of a $38B retail empire) decided to get serious about climate, they turned to CREO for help navigating the complex landscape of clean tech deals. CREO connects ~200 families (over $800B in assets) to vetted climate projects – from battery startups to sustainable farming – and facilitates frank knowledge-sharing on what’s working and what isn’t/
If you prefer listening, check out the opening of the MCJ podcast episode with Sharon Schneider (Jan 2025). In the first ~15 minutes, Sharon explains in plain English why many family offices are rethinking their entire approach because of climate change
Intermediate: From Awareness to Action: How Family Offices Invest in Climate
So you get the basics. Now, how do family offices actually deploy capital for climate impact? This section dives into the strategies, tools, and plays family offices are using to tackle climate challenges.
Catalytic Capital: Family Offices as Climate MVPs
Family offices often talk about “leaving a legacy.” Well, this is where legacy meets leverage. By design, FOs can invest in ways traditional investors often can’t or won’t. A big theme here is impact-first investing, putting impact goals above immediate profit. Translation: being willing to take bigger risks or accept lower returns if it means a climate solution gets funded.
Contrary to what many assume, wealthy families can make a huge dent in climate change if they embrace this mindset. It’s called catalytic capital for a reason: it jump-starts projects that otherwise stall. Think of it as the high-octane fuel for nascent climate solutions. According to the MacArthur Foundation, this kind of capital is perfect for high-impact ideas that are too early-stage, too risky, or too long-horizon for banks or VCs.
Bridging the “Valley of Death”
A huge issue in climate finance is the notorious funding gap for first-of-a-kind projects (FOAK) and other unproven technologies. Venture capital might fund a prototype in a garage, and project finance will fund a fully proven solar farm – but who funds the 20 MW demo plant or the first commercial-scale factory of a new climate tech?
We’re actually seeing the rise of a new niche for this, sometimes dubbed “development equity.” Essentially, angels, family offices, and mission-driven funds are moving into the no-man’s-land between VC and bankable infrastructure.
Collaborative Networks & Knowledge Sharing
Another issue family offices face is know-how. Climate tech is a fast-moving, technically complex arena, even the savviest investment team might not have in-house experts on, say, direct air capture vs. green hydrogen. That’s why we see the emergence of networks and syndicates (like the aforementioned CREO Syndicate) and communities such as impact investor forums where families compare notes. By collaborating, family offices can co-invest and learn from each other’s hits and misses.
For an intermediate learner, it’s worth checking out organizations or events where FOs talk climate shop. (Many regions have their own: e.g., The ImPact network globally, CREO mostly NA/EU, etc.) These networks often produce free reports or case studies – gold mines for practical examples:
👉 https://www.creosyndicate.org/research
👉 https://theimpact.org/insights/
Advanced: Current Challenges & Future Outlook
Welcome to the deep end. Now we assume you get that family offices can be key players in climate finance: so what’s holding them back, and what’s next?
Challenge 1: Mindset and Mandate.
The first challenge is internal: not every family office is fully on board with prioritizing climate, even if the interest is there. Many FO principals still expect market-rate returns and have traditional fiduciary mindsets (“protect and grow the wealth”) that can clash with impact goals. Being a climate leader often requires a willingness to trade off some return or liquidity for impact, and not all families are psychologically prepared for that. Successful climate family offices have had some frank conversations about legacy – reframing climate investing as part of the family’s long-term mission. That helps the decision-making pivot from “is this a prudent investment?” to “is this a strategic imperative for our legacy?”.
Challenge 2: Navigating a Broad & Complex Space.
Climate investing isn’t one market – it’s dozens of markets, technologies, and sectors. For any family office, a big hurdle is figuring out where to play. Do you focus on clean energy infrastructure? Venture capital in climate tech startups? Nature-based solutions? All of the above?
This is why networks (like CREO, Prime Coalition, etc.) and advisors are crucial, but even then, staying on top of a rapidly evolving field is tough. FOs worry about picking the “wrong” tech (nobody wants to bet big on the next Solyndra) or missing out on the next Tesla.
Some families address this by hiring dedicated sustainability leads or partnering with experienced climate investment firms. Others start with thematic funds to let pros handle it. The challenge remains: climate solutions need trillions, and we need more family offices comfortable enough in this space to deploy capital swiftly and smartly.
Challenge 3: Impact Measurement & Avoiding Greenwash.
Family offices, especially those serious about climate, grapple with how to measure and verify the impact of their investments. Traditional investing is all about financial KPIs; climate investing adds layers of complexity: carbon abated, resilience built, communities served, etc. Right now, there’s no universal gold standard for measuring climate impact, but frameworks like the UN SDGs or IRIS+ metrics are common starting points.
Advanced family offices are increasingly demanding real data: How many tons of CO₂ does this investment actually cut? Is this forestry fund actually improving biodiversity or just shuffling credits around?
A forward-looking trend here: some family offices are collaborating to create shared due diligence standards for climate deals, so everyone isn’t reinventing the wheel.
Challenge 4: Policy and Market Uncertainty.
Let’s face it: climate investing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Policies, government incentives, and economic swings can make or break an investment. Family offices are concerned about regulatory risk: today’s friendly subsidy (say, a tax credit for green hydrogen) might be gone tomorrow if politics change. Or a carbon price that was on the horizon might not materialize. These uncertainties mean FOs have to be extra savvy in scenario planning.
Likewise, market volatility (e.g. the falling cost of solar panels disrupting older investments, or rising interest rates making project finance harder) is a constant background challenge.
Advanced family offices are responding by geographic diversification (invest in multiple regions so you’re not overexposed to one country’s policy), and by engaging in policy advocacy/philanthropy to stabilize the landscape. They’re also structuring investments to be more resilient – e.g. using blended finance to de-risk projects (pairing grants with investments as buffers) or insisting on offtake agreements in project deals to lock in revenue.
Nonetheless, the current state is that climate investing requires a higher tolerance for policy curveballs than, say, buying an index fund – and that’s an advanced consideration every FO in this space must grapple with.
Still haven’t had enough Family Office deep dive, read the Global Family Office Report 2025:
👉 https://www.ubs.com/de/en/wealthmanagement/who-we-serve/family-office-and-uhnw/global-family-office-report.html
Tomorrow, Wednesday 18th, at 9am PST, 18:00 CEST we are organising an open fireside on the State of Family Offices, with Family Offices and experts on Family Offices, and everything in between. Join here:
For more Climate Drift: Community | Accelerator | Open Climate Firesides | Deep Dives