An ethics researcher has vowed to give away £1 million - more than half of his future earnings - in a bid to help fight poverty in the developing world.
Dr Toby Ord, an academic at Oxford University, will give up 10% of his annual salary, plus any yearly earnings above £20,000 for the rest of his career.
He calculated he should earn about £1.5 million and said he realised that if he was to continue living modestly he would be able to give away £1 million of this to help others.
The launch of his Giving What We Can society will encourage others to do the same, he said.
Dr Ord, a 30-year-old research associate at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, said: "Life on my current income is very good. If I spent the extra money on myself I could go on holiday more often, get an iPhone, eat out at expensive restaurants. It would be nice, but not all that much better.
"So I have a choice between greatly improving the lives of tens of thousands of people or adding a few extras to my life. Put like that, it is an easy choice.
"Once you get used to the idea, it is actually not much of a burden.
"I feel much more purposeful in life. What is difficult is agonising over whether you can justify each luxury.
"By making a pledge you don't have to do that anymore: you just live within your new means.
"By standing together as a group, we hope to make others see giving this much as a real option and to encourage charities to be more efficient in their programmes so as to attract our giving."
