Leonardo DiCaprio is a great actor who has had a great career so far with at least seventeen years of experience and plenty of famous films under his belt like Titanic, Shutter Island, The Aviator, and Romeo & Juliet. But you might not have heard that apart from making films he is also extremely interested in saving the environment and preventing pollution.

There are many celebrities who do good causes for charities and for the environment, but Leonardo DiCaprio is one of the biggest good guys. Known as one of the most outspoken green celebrities in Hollywood, he has some strong environmental opinions and wants everybody to hear about them. So much so that he founded his own charity that tries to help people see what kind of things are bad for the environment and what you can do to prevent it. Thanks to Leonardo DiCaprio, and a few other celebrities, there is a lot more awareness for charities and people are willing to get on board and invest money because they feel that they can trust the charity.

Green Foundation: The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation

"Global warming is not only the number one environmental challenge we face today, but one of the most important issues facing all of humanity. We all have to do our part to raise awareness about global warming and the problems we as a people face in promoting a sustainable environmental future for our planet." - Leonardo DiCaprio

In 2008 Leonardo decided to establish his own charity called the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation. The foundation actively tries to promote awareness for environmental issues by participating with organisations like the Natural Resources Defence Council, Global Green USA and the International Fund For Animal Welfare. They have their own website to show people what a human being does to the environment and they have all kind of campaigns to get awareness for the environment, such as “The world wide movement to eliminate the use of plastic bags”.

Leonardo DiCaprio produced and narrated a film called The 11th Hour in 2007, for the Foundation. It is a full-length documentary that discusses what we humans do to cause global warming and what we can do to stop it. Leonardo wants to make people aware of the urgency of the global warming in the world and wants all people to do their part to stop global warming.

But this wasn't the first film he has written and narrated. He has also made two short documentaries, called Global Warming and Water Planet. In these documentaries he tries to make people aware of the dangerousness of Global Warming and the lack of water in the world.

The Green Lifestyle of Leonardo DiCaprio

Not one to just talk about it by simply establishing a foundation and letting others take action, Leonardo also walks the walk: he lives green in New York! Leonardo has a super green apartment built on the last patch of land in Rockefeller Park with solar panels, green roofs and made with locally sourced renewable materials! He also uses eco friendly products and energy efficient appliances and famously (as asked by Oprah) drives in a hybrid car. Flying is one of the things that he needs to do for his work but he isn't one of the celebrities with a private jet. He flies with commercial airlines to minimise the pollution his travel has of the environment.

 

Want to know more?

• Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation website
• The world wide movement to eliminate the use of plastic bags

 

Written by Manja Louman

Image credit: Colin Chau Photography via Flickr Creative Commons.