Environmental Organizations: Who They Are and What They Do

What do environmental organizations do? Environmental or ecological organizations are institutions that set out to study, monitor or protect the environment from the misuse and degradation caused by human activity. Their work ranges from running information campaigns on environmental issues to investing hundreds of millions of dollars to support sustainable economic projects.

Environmental or ecological organizations can be a charity, a trust, a non-governmental organization (NGO) or a government body. Their reach may be global, regional or local. They also differ in focus — campaigning to conserve rainforests, endangered animals or the environment in general.

The main areas these organizations work on are: air pollution, waste disposal, new forms of energy, sustainable economic development, global warming, endangered species, consumerism and the depletion of natural resources.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is an NGO working on the conservation, research and restoration of the environment. It is the largest conservation organization in the world, with more than 5 million volunteers working across 100 countries. It also organizes EARTH HOUR.

 

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Greenpeace, founded in 1971 in Vancouver, Canada, is an NGO present in more than 50 countries whose stated aim is to “ensure the ability of the Earth to nurture life in all its diversity”. It concentrates its campaigns on issues such as global warming, deforestation, overfishing, whaling and genetic engineering.

World Nature Organization (WNO) is a very young intergovernmental organization — it began operating in 2012 — that promotes environmental protection. It works mainly to promote new clean technologies, economic activities and renewable energy that are friendly to the environment. The body is one of the main outcomes of the UN’s multilateral environmental negotiations; in essence its role is to turn the UN’s environmental protection declarations into workable action.

Friends of the Earth is an environmental organization with more than 2 million activists in 74 countries that works to shift perceptions and raise awareness among the public, the media and politicians on environmental issues, sustainable development and poverty, among others.

Global Environment Facility works to build partnerships between countries, international institutions, civil society organizations and the private sector to tackle environmental problems worldwide while supporting sustainable development initiatives. It also makes grants to projects on biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, the ozone layer and waste disposal. Since 1991 it has provided more than US$22 billion in funding and mobilized more than US$120 billion in co-financing for over 5,200 projects across 165 countries.

Earth Action created in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, is an action network of more than 2,600 organizations in 165 countries. It has run more than 84 campaigns aimed at informing and inspiring people around the world to turn their concern, passion and outrage into meaningful action for a fairer, more peaceful and more sustainable world.

Cool Earth is an environmental organization that has worked since 2007 to protect the world’s most threatened rainforests, working with Indigenous communities to halt the advance of illegal logging. Each year deforestation causes more CO2 emissions than the United States produces, which makes fighting the destruction of rainforests the best opportunity to slow climate change.

With more than 3.5 million members, supporters and activists worldwide, the NGO Environmental Defense Fund works to solve the most critical problems facing the planet, especially the biosphere: climate, oceans, ecosystems and health. It does so alongside other organizations, governments, companies and the communities themselves, with whom it has achieved major innovations in protecting the environment.

For more than 20 years THE CLIMATE GROUP has promoted a low-carbon future through a “clean revolution” of new technologies and green energy. It works with governments and corporations to develop new models and public policies that encourage innovation. The organization publishes reports and regularly holds events with world leaders on new green technologies and climate change.

Geute Conservación Sur is a Chilean NGO focused on preserving biodiversity, ecosystems and landscapes, and on ecological restoration work. It also promotes laws that help preserve, conserve and restore rivers and their associated ecosystems.

Last updated: July 5, 2026