New climate institute at University of Toronto launched with $60M gift

The multi-year gift from Brian and Joannah Lawson will also create three endowed chairs in policy innovation, sustainable energy and sustainable food systems, and help offer 100 annual scholarships to students wishing to pursue research on climate solutions. 

The couple say they’re hopeful the gift will help spur other donors to back climate initiatives, which only garner a fraction of all philanthropic dollars in Canada. 

U of T president Meric Gertler says Canadian universities have a “major responsibility” to remain focused on climate change as some companies and countries pull back from those commitments.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has clawed back funding for climate-related research at major American universities, including a $4-million cut to Princeton University earlier this month. 

Several prominent U.S. professors have in recent weeks announced plans to join U of T, including philosophy professor Jason Stanley who has said the government under Trump is becoming a fascist regime.

Although Gertler says attracting U.S. climate researchers to U of T was not a motivation for the gift, the timing “could not be better” for making a “bold and visible” statement about the university’s sustainability commitments. 

“If that means that we’re able to attract wonderfully talented scholars from around the world to help us do that, so much the better,” he said.

The $60-million gift from the Brian and Joannah Lawson Family Foundation was part of a larger Earth Day announcement by the Clean Economy Fund, a Canadian charitable foundation that tries to rally philanthropy for climate solutions. 

The couple underlined how climate change is an issue that impacts virtually every philanthropic goal, whether it be food security, support for the vulnerable or affordability challenges. 

“I really firmly believe that the future is a net-zero decarbonized future,” said Joannah Lawson, the family foundation’s president. 

“If Canada… doesn’t continue to fund in this area and really focus on it, we will get left behind in an economic system that’s of the past.” 

Brian added that “now is definitely not the time to be stepping back.” 

He is a vice chair at Brookfield Corporation, the large global investment company where he has also served as chief financial officer. 

U of T has committed to divesting its investment portfolio from fossil fuel companies by 2030 and its school of the environment refuses donations and sponsorships from those companies, though it still allows individual scholars to pursue funding as they see fit. 

When asked whether he’d support a similar policy for the university, Gertler said he was not aware of “any kind of institutional association” between U of T and a fossil fuel company. 

The university has a goal to make its St. George campus carbon positive by 2050, reducing more greenhouse gases than it emits.

The climate institute’s interim director is David Sinton, a mechanical engineering professor whose research lab looks at converting carbon dioxide into other useful products. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 22, 2025.