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The Foundation

The main mission of the Kilian Jornet Foundation is the preservation of mountains and their environment.

Mountains have played an essential role in Kilian Jornet’s athletic and personal growth, which is why their preservation has become both a passion and a priority.

The pillars of our work

Although mountain environments are different throughout the world, they share many of the same problems as they are very vulnerable natural areas.
Direct actions to preserve the mountains
We can all contribute, participate and take action. The Foundation aims to promote individual and collective direct actions. Understanding these as non-violent acts, in order to bring about change to protect and preserve mountain environments. The KJF facilitates contacts between actors involved, technical cooperation and resource mobilization. 
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Raising Awareness & Education
Raising awareness is a very important part of our task at the KJF. We aspire to reach as many different organizations and individuals as possible. We pursue to educate and inform people and actors involved about our cause, mountain environments preservation. We intend to influence attitudes, behaviours and beliefs at an individual and collective level.
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Research
We consider research a decisive and very useful factor when it comes to mountain environments preservation. To be able to gain a better understanding of the effects of global warming and the degradation of ecosystems in mountain environments, and therefore develop the best tools to fight against it.  
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Direct actions to preserve the mountains
  • Implement cleaning actions in polluted areas.
  • Removal of unused man made infrastructure.
  • Build and implement sustainable solutions to minimize human impact.
  • Help individuals, companies and institutions on their sustainable transition.
  • Reach out to a variety of actors involved in mountain environment preservation and proactively share and develop existing guidelines on sustainable outdoors activities.
  • Decrease negative threats to mountain biodiversity.
  • Upkeep and maintain paths,signs, dirt roads, huts etc.
  • Implement any other relevant action on the field to solve a local or temporary environmental problem.
Raising Awareness & Education
We raise awareness about the need to preserve glaciers and mountain environments ,  as well as highlighting the consequences of global warming in the environment. We contribute to a more sustainable future for our mountains by promoting an educational approach on how a good relationship between humans and our mountains should be.The KJF organizes technical courses, workshops and training sessions to broaden the knowledge and perspective of a variety of beneficiaries involved in mountain environments preservation. We care about the contents we generate and the message we convey, we are strongly committed to a real transformation within our scope of action.
  • Raise awareness and access to comprehensible resources and information.
  • Promote attitudes and actions to be taken for the cause.
  • Help outdoors key stakeholder groups to commit to a transition into a sustainable model with special focus on the mountain resources impact.  
  • Issue briefings and reports, studies, publications and working with media.
  • Hold public events, conferences, workshops and trainings.
  • Create educational materials for all ages.
  • Develop curricula material for different educational groups.
  • Share existing technologies related to mountain preservation. 
  • Mainstream UN SDG goals linked to our cause.
  • Promote the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and of the Paris Agreement in mountains.
Research
  • Help financing research and monitoring studies focusing on climate change effects and pollution in mountain environments.
  • Study the mountain’s role in the ecosystem and biosphere and the impact of human activity.
  • Find solutions and actions to preserve mountain environments in order to fight climate change.
  • Prepare reports on the state of mountain environments.
  • Organize and facilitate seminars, conferences, workshops and information-sharing platforms between stakeholders.
  • Collect innovative scientific and technical knowledge.
  • Promote media coverage and key solution-oriented policy messages.

History and mission

Kilian Jornet, is a Catalan professional sky runner, trail runner, ski mountaineer, long-distance runner and alpinist, referred as the all round mountain athlete.

Since an early age he developed a very unique relationship with mountains and their environments, he has always felt very grateful and appreciative for such an opportunity. While accomplishing extraordinary adventures around the world, Kilian realized mountain environments are facing serious hazards. Aware of the fact challenges ahead are daunting, Kilian wanted to reach out and take action.

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History and mission

Throughout his career Kilian has become a committed environmental activist. He wants to play not only in the mountains yet play a part on saving, protecting and preserving mountain environments.

Kilian started a foundation in his name in 2018, since he strongly believes mountain environments protection and preservation are crucial for the planet’s wellbeing. Like Kilian, it is important we all become team players while we develop an individual consciousness in order to preserve our mountains and their environments. 

Kilian is confident we can come to a healthy and sustainable balance between using and preserving mountain environments.

Kilian’s athletic milestones have certainly made history, it is now time for all of us to make history together and protect and preserve mountain environments. The same way Kilian has accomplished unthinkable landmarks; it is time for us to get involved in a very challenging endeavour too, protect our mountains and their environments. 

Vision

Mountains have played an essential role in Kilian Jornet’s athletic and personal growth, which is why their preservation has become both a passion and a priority.

Kilian Jornet vision:

“A society where humans live with a sustainable use of the natural resources to ensure the quality of life for all the species, including ours leads to a more equitable society. With a universal respect and knowledge of nature as a key value, where nature is integrated in everyone’s life and where natural spaces are wider and wilder.

For this vision to become true we need to change the model of our society. While this vision should be carried in a global scale we believe that community strength and small steps lead towards bigger transitions and that’s the aim this foundation was born for, to work on preserving one of the biggest natural spaces towards a better future for all the inhabitants of earth.”

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Vision

Taking into account these wise words, at the KJF we aim for a global interconnected community in which:

  • Members with different backgrounds are proactively engaged and committed to sustainable mountain environments preservation.

  • Citizens have had access to educational programs and have developed their environmental capacity and are highly environmentally conscious and act according to their best practices in order to have a positive impact especially on mountain environments. 

  • Different actors and sectors in society –public and private- increase their involvement in the existing worldwide networks, conventions, International Organizations, multidisciplinary initiatives focused on mountain environments preservation.  

  • The foundation generates synergies and establishes partnerships with a variety of stakeholders, which will engage and invest in the protection and preservation of mountain environments.

Goals

Our goal is to work towards a durable, solid and long-lasting cooperative engagement and collective action in order to preserve mountain environments.

At the Kilian Jornet Foundation we believe we can all contribute and invest in preserving our mountains and their environments with individual and joint actions.

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Goals

The Foundation aims to: 

  • Contribute to our planet’s biodiversity preservation and protection. More specifically to prevent and halt biodiversity loss in natural areas in particular the mountain regions. In the last 50 years the biodiversity loss has been 68%.

  • Promote environmental protection and the reduction of individual and collective carbon footprint in order to reverse, slow and stop climate change. Light upon new practices and especially artificial carbon trapping technologies, to lessen CO2 emissions.

  • Advocate to reduce and stop the pollution in natural areas and especially in mountain areas.

  • Raise Awareness of a balanced and sustainable use of natural resources and ecosystems. The ongoing overexploitation of natural resources negatively contributes to global warming, ozone layer depletion, land degradation and environmental pollution. These factors pose a serious threat to mountain environments.  

  • Foster the development of a more sustainable mountain and natural regions model. It is important to engage all actors involved, to improve and update the current mountains regions approach. Mountains and natural areas can be protected from intensive land use, from polluting human initiatives including tourism and unsustainable outdoors leisure sport activities. A new paradigm has to be agreed upon and accordingly implemented. 

  • Facilitate research and knowledge sharing in order to deepen the public understanding of climate change and the devastation of ecosystems in mountain environments.

What do we do

We believe the responsibility of preserving mountain environments relies upon all of us. We can directly or indirectly positively contribute to a global and sustainable mountain environment preservation.  

“In my short lifetime I’ve seen glaciers disappear. That’s only an example of the scale of the human impact on earth. We can’t fight nature because we’re nature and by working together we can make a positive impact on the planet.”

Kilian Jornet

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What do we do

Let’s learn from Kilian, be brave, find a way and take a stand on this cause, let’s be grateful for everything mountains offer us and proactively take care of them.  Step by step, mountain by mountain. 

With the purpose of achieving the Foundation’s mission and goals, we base our work on three pillars.

  1.             Direct Actions
  2.             Raising Awareness & Education
  3.             Research

Not only do we consider these three pillars part of our foundational axis, these also define our action frame. The KJF focuses its work on creating, managing and implementing a wide variety of projects. We fund our own projects and ones from third parties of similar nature to solve sensitive environmental mountain related problems. 

We aim to generate and to deliver qualitative and quantitative outputs with a positive impact on mountain environments, which ensure their ownership and sustainability.

The Foundation has its own priorities and agenda, yet we welcome a wide range of inputs which can possibly fall in our goals and strategic plan. We prioritize innovative, sustainable and accessible projects. We pay special attention to those focusing on environmental sustainability, sports, social and educational issues. 

We are open to project proposals and new ideas from a variety of actors such as:

Academic and scientific institutions, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), Private Sector Entities and Associations, Research & Education Organizations, Outdoors Federations, Athletes and Brands.

 

Values

Independence, accountability and transparency. We are an independent, transparent non-profit organization. Accountability and transparency are inherent to our philosophy. We do not represent any political or institutional organization nor third-party interests.

Openness and inclusivity. We welcome ideas and projects from a variety of stakeholders and potential beneficiaries, with whom we establish productive partnerships and networks to jointly collaborate and cooperate. We boost enriching synergies and enhance direct communication. 

Commitment to environmental sustainability. We aim for the planet’s and mountain environments well-being. Our implementing project approach is ecological, respectful and is tailored to each context.

Perseverance and Resilience. At the KJF we are aware of the current challenges when it comes to mountain environments preservation, yet inspired by Kilian’s wisdom and experience, we are determined to persist. We will develop the capacity to endure and overcome hardship.

Scientific research.  As part of an interconnected global community, reliable and verified data is crucial. Scientific research is one of our priorities, it has become an essential tool when tackling climate change and its consequences.

Ethical. Our ethical commitment starts within the foundation and it applies to our  social and corporate responsibility.

Simplicity. We are direct and want to get things done. Acknowledging how bureaucratic and intricate some institutions can be, we thrive for being dynamic and decisive.

Participative. We embrace interactions, collaborations and partnerships of different nature with a variety of stakeholders and potential beneficiaries. At the KJF we give priority to the quality and the quantity of inputs and outputs generated by those actively engaged.

Humanistic. At the KJF we are keen on underlining the personal worth of the individual, and the added value of joint individual efforts. Projects and actors involved in the Foundation are fundamental, yet we emphasize the contents of the messages to be delivered.

Innovative. We continuously strive to redefine the standard of quality in everything we do. So, we are open to ideas that challenge the conventional approaches and embrace innovation. Innovating entails transforming new ideas into tangible results, which we apply to the entire foundation.

Solidarity. Developing empathy and connecting with our colleagues and partners’ professional needs, identifying our strengths and weaknesses, reaching out to communities and entities with limited resources increases our responsiveness as a foundation.

Volunteerism. We count on a very proactive multi-disciplinary team of volunteers from around the world who perform an extraordinary task. They are a key component at the KJF.

Who we are

The Kilian Jornet Foundation is a non-profit organization
whose goal is the preservation of mountain environments.

The Foundation acts as an open and inclusive platform to facilitate and gather ideas, resources and strategic collaborations. We aim to raise social awareness, invest in research and establish partnerships by implementing multidisciplinary innovative projects, which aim to protect and preserve mountain environments.

A dynamic multi disciplinary team with a strong commitment with nature, mountains, social justice and human rights. The Foundation has become the meeting point for a variety of nature and mountain lovers with a common goal, the preservation of mountain environments. 

The Foundation benefits from Kilian Jornet’s name and reputation, thus we are committed to making a good use of his name in the development of our activity.

Kilian Jornet
President

I define myself as a lover of mountains. I love competing and being a mountain athlete but, above all, I conceive sport as a way to discover landscapes both inside and outside you. But now I am facing the hardest summit, and it will be the most important summit I would need to climb, to reverse the devastating effects of climate change. And for that, we would need to work together to preserve mountain environments.

Jordi Lorenzo
Trustee
My professional life has always been linked to the outdoor industry. I have been very interested in its sustainable approach. For this reason, I did not hesitate to join the Foundation and help on boosting its projects.
Anna Manjón
Project Developer
As a biologist with a passion for the natural world, I have spent years studying the complexity of life at the cellular level. As an outdoor lover, I developed a deep connection to environmental sustainability and the urgent need for action. Now, as part of the Foundation, I am committed to protect our mountains while creating awareness about the fragility of these ecosystems. Nature has given us so much, and it’s our turn to give back.
Gerard Vila
Project Manager

My studies, forestry engineering, and my sport, ski mountaineering have brought me to the mountains for plenty of time. I live in the duality between conservation of the mountains but at the same time enjoying them. The challenge is clear, how can we do it? Now, I am joining the foundation’s attempt to find the answer.

Joan Solà
Collaborator
I have been practicing outdoor sports during my whole life, and after 30 years, my passion became my profession. When Kílian founded KJF, I thought that collaborating with a foundation with the main goal of preserving the environment was the best way to return to nature all that it gave to me.
Nuria Burgada
Educational Project Coordinator
I have always been connected to mountains. A feeling of gratitude and freedom hits me when I am there. That is why I decided to live and raise my children in the mountains. I feel all the aggressions that the environment suffers, and the Foundation has given me the space to act and raise awareness especially for children and young people. As a teacher, I bet on an education that is inspired by nature and mimics it.
Laura Viñals
Communications Manager
I am passionate about nature and outdoor sports, and I have seen and felt the big changes our environment is experiencing. The Foundation gives me the opportunity to share and spread the message of preserving our mountains, and to elevate the projects that could make it happen. We need to take action, and the moment is now. Let’s preserve our future together.