Meet the pair donating £5.2m a week to climate change

Through their foundation they have donated £269.8 million over the past year — more than £5 million a week — giving seven-figure sums to recipients including the Arctic Basecamp, the African Climate Foundation, and the World Wide Fund for Nature. They also gave £27.8 million to the Grantham Foundation, which established the Grantham Institute, bringing together climate and environmental experts from Imperial College London.

• The Sunday Times Rich List 2025 revealed

On founding the Quadrature Climate Foundation in 2019, Setiya, 52, and Skinner, 51, announced they would pledge $100 million a year to fight climate change. And, unlike other individuals on the Giving List, the foundation pays out.

Not everyone is as generous as they appear to be. There are a handful of Rich Listers who donate significant sums to their named charitable foundations, where it stays put rather than being spent. This may support the stereotype that billionaires who give to charity are doing so to encourage tax breaks. Generally, though, the motivation is personal.

“The ‘why’ of philanthropy is simple — every child deserves to be healthy and happy,” Sir Chris Hohn says. “Every 14 seconds, there is a preventable mother or newborn death — there is no way to justify this.” He is keen to highlight a new initiative: the Beginnings Fund, which is working with African governments to strengthen maternal and newborn healthcare, aiming to prevent more than 300,000 avoidable deaths by 2030.

Hohn, founder of TCI Fund Management, may be third this year, having donated 12 per cent of his total worth to charity, but the Giving List’s former No 1 is still the most generous man in Britain. “What I found was the more money I gave away, the more money came to me,” he says. Recent accounts showed personal donations to his charitable foundations and their charitable activities totalled £983 million in 2023.

A new entry bringing some youthful flair to this year’s Giving List is Harry Styles. The 31-year-old singer’s global Love on Tour made £460 million. Styles donated £5.2 million generated by the 173 shows to charities including Save the Children, Choose Love and Planned Parenthood.

Further analysis of this year’s rankings found that, of the 100 Rich Listers who feature, 90 gave more than £1 million, 48 gave more than £10 million (up from 38 last year) and 10 donated more than £100 million. For the first time in three years, donations by the top 100 have risen, by £498 million, with a total of £3.731 billion given compared with £3.233 billion in 2024.

According to the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), a supporter of the Giving List, the professionalisation of philanthropy has taken a big leap. Hedge fund managers are using their expertise to enormous effect, advising charities on how they can use their finances more effectively.

“Everyone else’s charity is emotionally driven by something we read, a story we hear or an appeal that is made, and high-net-worths absolutely are driven by the same thing,” says Edward Garrett, head of private clients at CAF. “But they also know they have a responsibility, given the level of charity they can give, to be more strategic.”

This has never been more crucial, according to CAF’s chief executive, Neil Heslop. Research by the foundation shows that charitable giving is in continual decline. Charities are relying on an ever-decreasing group of people to show their generosity. “The wealthy need to talk more openly about their own personal giving journeys in order to inspire their peers,” Heslop says. “If these individuals were giving 1 per cent of their investible assets, as the people at the top of the Giving List are doing, that would be about £20 billion going into the charity sector on an annual basis.” Seldom has that money been more urgently needed.

Hohn is soon to announce an extension of philanthropic giving for his Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF), but “in the immediate term, CIFF is helping our partners respond to the sudden and chaotic aid cuts and the threat to public health and climate action”, he says.

“UK citizens can be incredibly generous on an individual basis, but I’m concerned about the turn away from support for government aid spending,” Hohn adds. “International development will prevent instability and is therefore essential to long-term prosperity and security.

“All wealthy individuals should be philanthropic. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel — in fact you shouldn’t. Find partners and work together to share insights on what works and what doesn’t. Giving generously and strategically brings joy and purpose.”

Rich List 2025

Explore the definitive guide to the wealth of the UK’s richest people