Founders

Founders

  • Justin Winters

    President and Co-founder

    Driven by a passion for nature, Justin Winters is committed to democratizing climate philanthropy in order to create an inclusive and impactful movement to address the climate crisis from the ground up. She is the Co-founder and Executive Director of One Earth, a nonprofit organization working to galvanize science, advocacy, and philanthropy to drive collective action on climate change. Through One Earth, she is focused on creating a vision for the world that is possible by 2050 – one in which humanity and nature coexist and thrive together. This vision is based on three pillars of action: 100% renewable energy, protection and restoration of 50% of the world’s lands and oceans, and a transition to regenerative, carbon-negative agriculture. Prior to One Earth, Justin served as Executive Director of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation for 13 years, where she built the organization’s grant-making program, which awarded over $100 million in grants across 60 countries and created a series of innovative philanthropic funds, including Oceans 5, Shark Conservation Fund, The Solutions Funds, Lion Recovery Fund, Elephant Crisis Fund, and Quick Response Fund for Nature.

  • Karl Burkart

    Co-founder and Deputy Director

    Karl is the Deputy Director of One Earth and formerly the Director of Media, Science & Technology at the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. One Earth's Science Program supports academic institutions and NGOs working on the cutting edge of climate and energy science, biodiversity conservation, and sustainable food systems. Through grantmaking and development capacity, the program helps to turn science into action, empowering decision makers in government, civil society, and the private sector. Karl also oversees production and distribution of content across One Earth’s website and social media properties, along with award-winning initiatives such as the Global Safety Net, which was recently named a "World Changing Idea" by Fast Company. Karl is a contributing author to "A roadmap for repowering California for all purposes with wind, water, and sunlight" (Energy, 2014) and later spearheaded the development of the landmark textbook Achieving the Paris Climate Agreement Goals (Springer Nature, 2019). He is also co-author of “A Global Deal for Nature: Guiding Principles, Milestones, and Targets” (Science Advances, 2019), a scientific paper establishing the evidence base for an ambitious conservation agenda covering 50% of the world’s lands and seas, which was endorsed by the IUCN including an interim 30x30 target adopted by the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022.