The brand has formed a partnership with Channel 4's BritDoc Foundation and is putting up €250,000, of which €50,000 will be awarded as a prize in summer 2011, to a single finished documentary at a gala event.
The rest will be made available for film makers in the early stages of projects to pitch for in 40 lots of €5,000.
Zeitz is convinced that helping independent documentary makers to communicate what is happening in the world is the best way Puma can make the world "a bit better".
Zeitz, to the audience at today's launch event, said: "Every time I watch a documentary something changes inside me. We believe in our company."
He said seeing sustainable fishing film 'The End of the Line', produced by the foundation and , two years ago influenced his decision to enter the partnership with Channel 4 BritDocs.
He said: "I'm not preaching that consumerism is bad and we have to consume less, we just have to change the way we consume."
Puma has already awarded grants to 10 films, with subject matters ranging from the financial crisis to food security.
Zeitz claimed the average Puma consumer was "asking the right questions" but believes the company has a duty to encourage them to change their behaviour.
He said: "We want to do good but we also want to make sure that it's relevant to our consumer. Very often we talk about the Millennials, that generation that is now finally asking awkward questions, and we believe that our consumer is asking the right questions.
"[By] promoting documentaries we can bring awareness to our consumer so we will be working on programmes that get documentaries into the homes of our consumers, linking them to what we are talking about today.
Ways of doing this could potentially include the company's Facebook page, which Zeitz said had 2.3 million fans, and its ambassador Usain Bolt's three million fans.
Zeitz said: "While we are of course still the company that wants to sell some product, with it we also want to create awareness, impact positive change because ultimately my belief is that companies have gotten us into the mess we are in today or at least are partially responsible.
"So we have to be the driving force to impact positive change and that includes changing consumer behaviour. We are trying to do that by really talking to our consumer and communicating our beliefs and that we can do in the best possible way through film."
Channel 4 also announced today it is putting an additional £50,000 into the foundation.
David Abraham, chief executive, said: "At Channel 4 we are pleased to be able to further support Puma's new international development fund with our own grant of an additional £50k enabling two of the films that receive grants from Puma's fund to go into production."
In January Channel 4 announced it would fund the foundation until at least 2012, committing £400,000 for a slate of feature documentaries.
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