Tony Pritzker’s patient strategy for the planet

Tony Pritzker approaches environmental philanthropy like a patient strategist. A scion of one of America’s best-known business families, he has spent decades moving between boardrooms, laboratories, and community meetings, applying the training of an engineer to problems that range from stormwater treatment in Los Angeles to packaging waste in global supply chains. Guided less by ideology than by pragmatism, he insists that “science is science and it’s fact-based,” and that durable solutions come from setting clear goals, gathering evidence, and persisting until results are visible.

Growing up in northern California and later raising a family in Los Angeles, he was never far from the state’s landscapes—from Lake Tahoe’s ski slopes to Santa Monica Bay. “I’m also a swimmer,” he says, recalling the moment when his love of the ocean turned into action. “I wanted the bay to be super clean because I swam there.” That instinct brought him to Heal the Bay two decades ago, where he joined the board under the leadership of Mark Gold. What began as an effort to keep a beach swimmable became a lesson in how to harness science, advocacy, and civic partnerships. Gold, he says, “really was my mentor.”

The template endures. For Heal the Bay the goals were simple: gather the science, train teachers, bring children to the ocean, and press policymakers. Out of such apparently modest steps came infrastructure investments such as stormwater treatment at Hyperion, which now filters hundreds of millions of gallons of runoff a year. Along the way the sidewalks of Los Angeles were painted with a blunt reminder—“Water Runs to the Ocean.” That clarity of mission is central to Pritzker’s philosophy. “You have to set very specific goals and work toward them. They can happen relatively quickly, though not overnight.”

This emphasis on focus and discipline runs through his wider giving. At UCLA, where he has chaired the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability’s advisory board, he helped launch the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award. Modeled partly on the MacArthur “genius” grants, it singles out early-career innovators. “Most discoveries are made by them, not by people 50 or 60 years old,” he notes. Winners have ranged from elephant conservationists to engineers developing clean-water systems for small farmers. What strikes Pritzker most is the optimism such work conveys: “If you come to the award ceremony you become an optimist, because you’re seeing people changing the world now.”

His optimism is not naïve. He is an industrial engineer by training, and his outlook is shaped by efficiency as much as by idealism. In business he has encouraged his packaging companies to invest early in “recycle-ready” materials, anticipating consumer and corporate demand. “It’s a pull, not a push; consumers pull and companies respond.” He bristles at false dichotomies between regulation and deregulation, pointing out that catalytic converters only arrived because citizens demanded cleaner air. The real enemy, in his view, is waste.

That practicality extends to politics. Pritzker insists that environmentalism need not be partisan. He funds UCLA law students to distill research into concise policy briefs, aware that most legislators will never read a 300-page white paper. He seeks conversations with Democrats and Republicans alike, framing environmental stewardship as a matter of facts, children, and future prosperity. “Most legislators have kids,” he says, invoking the old adage, “Take only pictures and leave only footprints.”

Pritzker is also candid about the scale of the challenge. As billions more people enter the middle class, demand for energy, food, and goods will grow. He describes himself as an “abundance” optimist—convinced that ingenuity can reconcile prosperity with planetary limits—but only if society invests in research, rewards early talent, and supports entrepreneurs. “We need to combine that spirit of innovation with stewardship of our resources.”

For those wondering where to begin, his advice is deceptively simple. “Find something you care about and get involved. Nothing is a simple flip of the switch. It’s complicated. But get started. Take the first step.” It is a fitting summary of a worldview that treats environmental action not as a grand gesture but as a series of steps—taken locally, grounded in science, and pursued with persistence until the target is reached.

An interview with Tony Pritzker

Rhett Butler for Mongabay: So, to get started, I’d love to learn a little more about why you went into environmental philanthropy. Currently, your philanthropy is more focused on California, especially Los Angeles, which makes sense because you live there. But can you provide some insight into how this all started and why you decided to get involved in these issues?

Tony Pritzker: Great. So yes, I grew up in Northern California and now live in—and raised my family in—Southern California. As you know, California has unbelievable biodiversity and it’s such a beautiful state. I’ve always felt connected to nature. We used to go to Lake Tahoe all the time for skiing. There is so much beauty in Northern California, and in Southern California we also have incredible places.  I’m also a swimmer, and I’ve spent a lot of time swimming in Santa Monica Bay.

So, it all started because of my connection to nature, but I really got started working on environmental issues—not just climate but all of nature—over 20 years ago through Heal the Bay. I joined the board when Mark Gold was there. I wanted the bay to be super clean because I swam there, and Mark educated me a lot about what we could do to protect the ocean and maintain the biodiversity that’s needed. He really was my mentor when it came to getting started.

I’m still supporting Heal the Bay through my foundation, but my personal interests have expanded into so many different areas of the environment. These days I do a lot more hiking and mountain biking, and spending time in nature gives you an appreciation for what we need to maintain a healthy environment.

Mongabay: I’d like to get a little more into your philanthropy. Are there areas where you feel philanthropy can move the needle especially quickly right now—areas that may be underfunded but highly actionable?

Tony Pritzker: Yeah. There are global things we can do, but I think each person really can have a big impact by working in their own home region. For example, at Heal the Bay we set four straightforward goals. One: get the science right—understand the facts. Two:educate 500 teachers per year—we exceeded that—because teachers are the ones who communicate with kids. Three: get 25,000 kids into the bay and ocean to experience it firsthand, whether it’s cleaning up the beach, learning about marine life, or similar activities. Finally: advocacy. You need the cooperation of local, county, and state governments. If they’re not aligned with your goals, you can’t get much done.

Take stormwater, for example. When it rains, everything on the street gets pushed into storm drains that run downhill to the ocean. You need to treat this before it reaches the ocean because someone may have changed their oil or littered, and that all ends up in the storm drain. Getting funding to build infrastructure like at Hyperion [a major sewage treatment plant in Los Angeles] was huge. Now it treats hundreds of millions of gallons per year of runoff—not sewer drainage but rain runoff. We even painted sidewalks to say “Water Runs to the Ocean” to remind people not to let things fall into the drains.

There’s a big education component. Someone living 30 miles inland may not realize what they’re doing affects the marine environment. So you have to take local context into account. We were so successful that we ended up participating in projects in a variety of locations throughout the country—not by expanding Heal the Bay, but by empowering local groups in places like Chesapeake Bay, San Francisco Bay, and Florida.

You have to set very specific goals and work toward them. They can happen relatively quickly, though not overnight—you don’t build a treatment plant in 90 days. But you can get the money allocated, pick the area, and then break ground. The older I’ve gotten, the more I realize you need a clear strategy: it may take a long time for the arrow to hit the target. Participating locally is probably the most important thing.

Mongabay: We’re in a moment with a lot of political pushback, especially against science, experts, and institutions. Are there lessons from what you learned that would be applicable to navigating this current moment?

Tony Pritzker: Look, I’m an engineer, and I believe in science. You have to be very specific. Sure, sometimes people manipulate data, but generally science is science and it’s fact-based. It’s important to get the data right and be clear that you have the right science. Then it’s about educating leaders—whether it’s my brother, who’s a Democrat, or my local representatives who might be Republicans—about that science.

One way we’ve done that through my philanthropy is by funding UCLA law students to write environmental papers. What I said to them was: let’s not make it a 300-page white paper. You can have that as a backup, but what you give to policymakers should be a short, colorful, 24-page summary. Politicians cover a lot of areas—transportation, environment, homelessness, taxes—and don’t have time to read 300 pages. Make something straightforward and fact-driven, with pictures and graphs, that they can read while going from one event to another. Their staffers then have to educate themselves too.

I don’t think of it as a partisan issue. The Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act—Democrats have passed other bills that help. The most important thing is to get the facts right and then everyone is willing to talk about it. Most legislators have kids. I always liked the expression “Take only pictures and leave only footprints.” You educate the public on how to make the environment as good or better for the next generation.

Mongabay: Speaking of the next generation, your foundation established the Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award a number of years ago, and I’ll be attending that event next month. Why did you do that and what have you learned through the program?

Tony Pritzker: I started working in environmental and sustainability philanthropy over a decade ago and then got asked to chair the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability [IoES] advisory board. There are professors and researchers involved and I help support them. The genesis of the award came from advice I got over 10 years ago when I spoke with other philanthropists in L.A. They said: if you give money, think about giving it to early-career researchers. Most discoveries are made by them, not by people 50 or 60 years old.

The “emerging” part reflects that. And “genius” was inspired by the MacArthur Genius Award. If someone is called a “genius,” you want to meet them and hear what they have to say. The award gives the winner money so they can continue and expand their work.

Peter Kareiva [the former Director of UCLA IoES] really helped design how selection of the winner works. Someone proposes a candidate—say Jane Smith is working on something really good—you write it up, and then a prestigious panel reviews the proposals, narrows them down to finalists, and names the first place and two runners-up. At the first event [in 2017] we had incredible people from all over the world as potential winners. When the envelope was opened and the winner announced, I thought, you know what, I feel badly for the runners-up, so I added more funding from our foundation so they’d get support as well.

If you come to the award ceremony you become an optimist, because you’re seeing people changing the world now. Most are changing their local environment, saving elephants, creating water systems, developing transportation networks so small farmers can get a higher percentage of their organic produce to market. There are so many different things. People come up to us at the event and it’s inspiring.

I’m also a friend of Peter Diamandis, the founder of XPRIZE. He often says yes—say yes to supporting innovation. That’s what we’re trying to do with the award: find people with great ideas, give them some resources, and let them go change the world.

They should be thinking about the premise behind all this. Over the years our population has grown and grown. Twenty-three years ago people were saying, “We’re going to run out of food, we’re going to run out of school space, we’re going to run out of the things we need.” Yet amazing people have always discovered inventive ways of getting those things. We need to combine that spirit of innovation with stewardship of our resources.

The World Resources Institute had a really interesting study about twenty  years ago. At the time, the planet had about 7 billion people but only about 2 billion were in the middle class – the other 5 billion were living in some form of poverty.  By 2030 they projected 9 billion people, with 5 billion in the middle class.

First of all, that makes me an optimist. In a capitalist world we’ve got this growing market. But it also means every single one of those new middle-class consumers will want a television, a car, a home—all the things that go with middle-class life. We need to be careful with the Earth so that, whether we end up with nine, twelve, or however many billion people, we can support that demand. I believe in abundance, but I also believe we need to help researchers, environmentalists, and entrepreneurs come up with ways that not only make the world a better place but also allow many more people to enter the middle class sustainably. That’s the kind of philanthropy I like to support.

Mongabay: We’ve talked about philanthropy, academia, and working with government, but we haven’t talked much about the role of business. How do you think about the private sector in the context of nature-based solutions?

Tony Pritzker: I believe in the free-market framework. If you’re a business, you have to respond to the customer. If consumers demand a product that doesn’t harm the environment, you have to respond to that.

For example, one of our companies is in the flexible-packaging business—stand-up pouches like your granola comes in, or pet food bags, or certain medical products. You can’t expect everything to be perfect overnight, but you can develop products the consumer wants: recyclable, “recycle-ready” not just in the product but in the packaging. We were ahead of the curve and became a large U.S. supplier of these products. It’s been good for us because it turns out consumers care. All of a sudden companies like Procter & Gamble were saying, “We have to produce this in a way that won’t end up floating in the ocean. We need recycle-ready products.”

These big companies have to protect shelf life when shipping to Amazon or stores, so the way flexible packaging is designed to meet the customer’s needs is something we work really hard on. We have an innovation center and provide them with recycle-ready solutions. Around 2018 all the buyers started coming to our booth at trade expos saying, “My boss says we need recycle-ready.” Two years later the companies were announcing zero-carbon goals.

I have seven kids—they’re like my own little consumer focus group—and they care a lot about the environment, not just because I told them to but because they’ve been taught it in school and hear it from friends and the media. I think it’s a pull, not a push; consumers pull and companies respond.

Companies respond in the way they need to. Sometimes that’s through regulation of wastewater or air quality, but often it’s because the consumer—the constituent—wants that. When I was in college in the early 1980’s I’d visit friends in Los Angeles and couldn’t even see the mountains because of the smog. Then the catalytic converter came along and regulations required it in cars. That happened because the public wanted cleaner air and regulators responded.

I’m not a big-regulation person. I’m more of a “paint the lines on the road but don’t drive the car” kind of guy. A rational amount of regulation is needed, but the consumer or constituent is really the demand driver.

Mongabay: So from that perspective—the “pull” from the consumer—you’re seeing demand for more sustainable, more responsible packaging hold up despite broader political shifts?

Tony Pritzker: For sure. Political shifts don’t change the air quality in Los Angeles or anywhere else. Regulations may slow certain policies or make things more cumbersome, but companies still find ways to be efficient and comply. I don’t think the political winds are against the environment; they’re against inefficiency. That’s what I appreciate about some of the current efforts—not advocating one way or the other but recognizing that inefficiency and waste aren’t good for the economy.

I’m an industrial engineer. It’s all about efficiency. You used to have to stand in a long checkout line at the grocery store or pharmacy; now you can use self-checkout and get out faster. That’s efficiency. The same thinking should apply to building environmental solutions. I’m a fan of progress, of making things better, and of doing it efficiently because that keeps costs down. I don’t see a total divide between regulators and deregulators. They’re not going to deregulate everything—voters still demand clean air and water, and politicians won’t get re-elected if they ignore that. It’s a pendulum swing. It may sound like it’s going in one direction, but it’s not going to go off a cliff.

Mongabay: Mark Gold mentioned the Ahmanson Ranch. What did that experience teach you about stopping harmful projects versus enabling better alternatives?

Tony Pritzker: There was a need to protect biodiversity, and the runoff from the ranch was going to flow into the wetlands. We had the science behind us, and I happened to know the Secretary of the Interior at that time.

When the Ahmanson Ranch issue came up, he happened to be coming to L.A. and I asked, “Hey, can I get a half hour of the Secretary’s time?” We took him there and showed him not just the map but the science—why we needed to find a solution.

The goal wasn’t simply to stop the development; it was to allow for development while requiring mitigation. You have to get people to the table. Someone who’s adamant and refuses to look for a solution isn’t helpful. Someone who says, “We’re going to have progress—let’s figure out how to do it with the least negative environmental impact” is the kind of partner you need.

You can’t do it just by protest. You need to identify influencers, get them to understand the issue, and bring them to the table. One introduction leads to another. I try to find where I can go on both sides of the aisle. I wouldn’t describe myself as a Republican or a Democrat. I support people who have the right values in mind.

In that case, to get the developer to the table — it helped knowing the Secretary of the Interior, knowing the developer’s team, and coming to a solution. That’s really what it is. Regulations, developers, regulators, buyers — these are all people. It’s not about some big, bad, ugly corporation. We have the ability to do the things we encourage companies to do. Growth has to respond to investigation and to consumers.

Mongabay: I want to talk a little about good practices for NGOs. You’ve served on boards. What would you say an effective board chair can do—besides fundraising—to set an organization up for long-term success?

Tony Pritzker: First, you have to be very clear about the mission—your mission and the organization’s mission—and be able to communicate it concisely. If you can’t make a five-minute pitch that keeps everyone’s attention, or if you make it too complicated, it’s impossible to achieve anything.

A lot of things are complicated, but you have to decide how you’re going to communicate to your different audiences: the employees of the NGO, the donors, the legislators, the local community. What’s your pitch? What’s your mantra? What’s your mission? You should be able to boil it down to just a few points. If you try to do twenty things at once, you end up moving everything forward a little but are likely to make no real progress.

So, my advice is to focus and think hard about your mission and get all parties aligned on it. That mission may adjust in three to four years because of setbacks or new opportunities, but you need clarity. That’s what we did at Heal the Bay.

The board not only has to be aligned on the mission, it also has to have clear indicators of whether you’re achieving it. Running an NGO is like running a business: secure support, hire great people, give them clear direction, and give them the tools and training to succeed. Then get out of their way—but be very clear about where you’re going.

At Heal the Bay we had four core goals: gather the science, educate the educators, get 25,000 kids to the beach every year, and advocate with the science. Everything else connected to those. We knew who we were trying to influence. There were lots of tactics, but those were the key things. It was simple, and someone was in charge of each one. You barrel ahead with that and don’t get distracted.

We do the same in our businesses. In our flexible packaging company, we decided we would create a recycle-ready option for every product. Sometimes it was a little more expensive, but now we have it—with beautiful graphics, clear windows, and recycle-ready packaging. Customers have seen it.

You have to make  clear the destination you’re going to. At UCLA, when I became chair of the Centennial Campaign ten years ago, we had three goals:

• Fundraise enough to recruit top-tier professors, researchers, and administrators.
• Attract the best students in the country.
• Create facilities and buildings that attract them.

Those were the three pillars. We communicated them to our governors, to the university, and to donors. We told professors, “You need to be the best at what you do because we want to attract the best students, and we’ll help you get there.”

It’s really the same everywhere: have a simple mission, communicate it, and execute. In that case UCLA raised more money through that campaign than any public university in history. It was because we had a very simple mission.

Mongabay: Sounds like it was successful. Looking at a more micro level, what are some of the things you look for when deciding whether to invest in a grantee?

Tony Pritzker: When we’re looking at grants—and I’m not necessarily inviting proposals here—we have a clear mission. We focus on five areas, one of which is the environment. If someone comes to me with something that’s worthwhile but outside those focus areas, it’s hard to achieve our goals. So, number one: we stay within our focus.

I look for a clear mission. I get very involved with the places we give. I don’t just sign a check and walk away. You have to evaluate: is this top talent that has a real chance of achieving its goal? Do they have a clear mission and an outline of how they’ll execute? Those things are super important.

I also look for smart people. I have a saying: “If you want to run fast, run with faster runners.” You have to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Hire people who want to do the work and know how to do it. I might create the culture and set the direction, but they’re the ones who are so good at what they do that you can trust them. Otherwise, why hire them?

I don’t micromanage. I want someone who knows the details and can set a destination. As the saying goes, “A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.” It also says, “If you don’t know your destination, any road will get you there.” It might be hard, but you’ve got to know your destination. That’s what I look for.

Mongabay: You’ve supported sustainability work at UCLA and in L.A. What outcomes or progress are you most proud of seeing locally?

Tony Pritzker: Again, it goes back to leadership. There’s a guy named Gaurav Sant at UCLA who runs the Samueli School of Engineering’s Institute for Carbon Management. He’s trying to decarbonize concrete production. That’s a science-heavy, engineering-heavy challenge. He created something called CarbonBuilt, which takes carbon and uses it in construction materials. That’s really cool, and I’m very proud of supporting that. Gaurav is absolutely terrific.

Mongabay:  For new philanthropists asking “Where do I start on climate and biodiversity?” What’s a simple first step?

Tony Pritzker: If you’re ready to get started, you have to find something you care about and get involved. My friends and I often joke: nothing is a simple flip of the switch. It’s complicated. It’s complicated to make flexible packaging that’s recyclable. But I’m passionate about it because my kids are passionate about it. They care about what happens to packaging in the ocean. All you have to do is see that and decide to take action.

Support friends and leaders who are doing something and working really hard. For example, one of my friends, Jon Hirshberg—his father got pancreatic cancer. Jon works really hard on that issue and runs events to help fund pancreatic cancer research. He has a whole business of his own, but he’s passionate about this cause. I love supporting his efforts.

Support people who are truly committed and working hard, not just dabbling. Moonshots don’t happen without that level of commitment.

The key to all of this is: the time required to complete a project is directly proportional to its weight—the harder it is to fix, the longer it takes. In our own production facilities, we maintain and fix things because in the long run that works.

So, my answer is: get started. Take the first step. Get going down the path.

Credits

Rhett Butler Editor

This story first appeared on Mongabay

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