Leonardo DiCaprio and his environmental charity are teaming with Laurene Powell Jobs, founder and president of Emerson Collective, and billionaire investor Brian Sheth to launch Earth Alliance as a new non-profit to battle climate change.
As a founding co-chair, the Oscar-winning actor will fold The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation into Earth Alliance as he combines forces with Powell Jobs, who is also the wife of the late Steve Jobs, and Sheth, who is a co-founder and president of the private equity fund Vista Equity Partners and also board chair of the Global Wildlife Conservation.
Sheth also founded the Sheth Sangreal Foundation, which will fully finance the administrative costs of Earth Alliance.
“Today marks the next step in the evolution of LDF as it fully merges under the new Earth Alliance management and grant-making framework,” DiCaprio said Tuesday in a statement. “Laurene and Brian are incredible civic leaders who share my passion and understanding of the urgency and scale of the challenges we face.”
Since launching in 1998, DiCaprio’s environmental charity has handed out around $100 million in grants to battle climate change around the world. At the same time, the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation got ensnared in a multibillion-dollar Malaysian corruption scandal and an international money-laundering scheme that allegedly was used to fund the movie The Wolf of Wall Street, in which the Hollywood actor starred.
“I am proud to join with Leo and Brian to make a habitable earth possible for future generations. Leo is one of the most uniquely gifted communicators of our time, and with Earth Alliance, we will harness those gifts to inspire people, regardless of age, race, or geography, to stand up as leaders for our natural world and safeguard our imperiled planet,” Powell Jobs said in her own statement.
“Our planet is at a critical turning point, and we have an opportunity to transition our society to a sustainable one in harmony with — and in support of — all life on Earth,” Sheth added in his own statement.
