The aim of Pew’s environmental initiatives is to strengthen policies and practices in ways that produce significant and measurable protection for terrestrial and marine systems worldwide. Pew's commitment to the environment began in 1974, when we first provided grants to regional conservancies, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute and the International Oceanographic Foundation.

Since then, we have continued to work to advance scientific understanding of the causes and consequences of environmental problems along with their solutions; provide economic analysis of decisions affecting such issues; design innovative policy solutions to these problems; and mobilize public support for implementing these solutions.