Our Journey

In 2010, Eric Lemelson founded the Karuna Foundation to contribute to the pressing issues of climate change mitigation and adaptation in the vulnerable Himalayan region.  As a career environmentalist and a farmer, he was deeply concerned with consequences of even slight changes in temperature, particularly in vulnerable regions and communities whose livelihoods would be hardest hit that had least contributed to global emissions. Research shows that mountainous high-elevation regions were going to see the most dramatic changes in temperature, and in response, the Karuna Foundation decided to focus funding efforts in Bhutan

The Karuna Foundation Board of Directors is composed of friends of Eric Lemelson. Collectively, they boast a wide-ranging set of professional credentials and an array of skills and experiences that contribute to the Karuna Foundation's creative grantmaking.