Investing in Conservation: A Landscape Assessment

A first-ever survey of conservation impact investing reveals a market of approximately $23 billion across just the last five years, and finds that investments in this space are expected to more than triple over the next five years (2014-2018). Join the report’s authors, Charlotte Kaiser, Managing Director of NatureVest and Kinship Faculty member Ricardo Bayon, Partner and Co-founder of EKO Asset Management Partners, as they summarize the report’s major findings.

Featured Speakers

Ricardo Bayon is a Partner and co-founder of EKO Asset Management Partners, a new breed of financial institution seeking to find innovative financial solutions to the world’s environmental problems. The company manages a fund that invests in carbon credits aimed at the California market and also provides advice on a variety of other markets for ecosystem services including water, biodiversity, fisheries, stormwater management, among others. Prior to co-founding EKO, he helped found and served as the Managing Director of the “Ecosystem Marketplace,” a web site and information/analysis service covering these emerging environmental markets.  In that capacity he co-authored a number of publications on voluntary carbon markets, mitigation banking, and ecosystem services including “The State of Voluntary Carbon Markets 2007: Picking up Steam” and “Voluntary Carbon Markets: An International Business Guide to What They Are and How They Work,” and “Conservation and Biodiversity Banking: A Guide to Setting Up and Running Biodiversity Credit Trading System”. For nearly two decades he has specialized on issues related to finance, banking, and the environment. He has done work for a number of organizations, including Insight Investments, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank, IUCN, The Nature Conservancy, Domini Social Investment, among others. His articles have appeared in publications such as The Washington Post, The Atlantic Monthly, the International Herald Tribune,. He has also written numerous publications and chapters on mitigation banking, biodiversity markets, markets for water quality, and other environmental markets. He was born in Bogota, Colombia, and is currently based in San Francisco.

Charlotte Kaiser leads product development for NatureVest, The Nature Conservancy’s program developing opportunities to drive private capital to conservation. She managed the launch and sale of the $25M Conservation Note, the first investment-grade retail debt produce offered to conservation impact investors, which sold out in less than twelve months. Previously she worked at Citibank in community development investing, providing debt and equity financing for green buildings, affordable housing, and energy efficiency initiatives. She has also worked for the New York City Parks Department building civic engagement and stewardship of the City’s parks and natural areas, and in Indonesian Borneo on a community-based forest management enterprise in a national park buffer zone. Charlotte holds a BA from Harvard University in Environmental Science & Public Policy, a Masters in Environmental Science from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She currently serves on the board of ioby, “in our back yards,” an innovative crowdsourcing resource platform for civic groups improving American cities. Charlotte lives in Brooklyn with her husband, an urban planner, and their son.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. We work to conserve the Earth’s ecologically important lands and waters in local places across all 50 U.S. states and in more than 30 other countries around the world. We create innovative conservation solutions that benefit nature and enhance the well-being of people who depend on vital natural resources for their lives and livelihoods.

When
Thursday, February 26, 2015 through Thursday, February 26, 2015
1 PM - 2 PM

Where
Webinar

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