This article, by The Regenerative Agriculture Initiative (RAI) team at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY), is the first in a series on key opportunities to accelerate regenerative agriculture in the United States. Ordinary agricultural production aggravates greenhouse gas emissions as well as soil health, water quality, and biodiversity. At today’s rate of soil degradation, some scientists predict the world’s topsoil could be destroyed within 60 years. Regenerative agriculture can reverse that. The Regenerative Agriculture Initiative (RAI) conducted a landscape analysis of ongoing efforts to accelerate regenerative markets in the United States.
Latest Articles
Forests like this can grow in steadier fashion when ratings for green bonds become steadier as well. (Photo by David Gierth, accessed via Pexels.)
Given the short history and dynamic state of the green bond market, wide variation exists in external review processes — based on regions, frameworks and evaluation parameters. Green bonds can fund energy, transportation, buildings or natural capital such as conservation. Work so far on certification shows how investors can keep building confidence and volume in this form of financing.
Blue carbon could be crucial in facilitating both private and public capital investment in coastal and marine ecosystems. The blue carbon market is, at present, still nascent. Governments and international institutions are revising methods of monitoring carbon to include blue carbon and develop structures to encourage private investment in blue carbon offsets.
Several recent reports, as well as observations from experts in the field, demonstrate a changing landscape of philanthropic conservation giving. Now, foundations more often incorporate broader social and environmental issues into conservation work. They also frequently approach conservation through the lens of climate change.
This article is the second of a two-part series focusing on the challenges and opportunities of incorporating conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios. CFN spoke to investment advisors about strategies for overcoming major barriers. Increased interest in impact opens opportunities for greater incorporation of conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios across a variety of scales, from small retail to large institutional.
This two-part article series explores the challenges of and opportunities for incorporating conservation finance into traditional investment portfolios. In Part 1, various current and former investment advisors with deep knowledge of impact finance discuss the challenges of integrating conservation investments into traditional investment portfolios.
In September, The Conservation Fund announced the closing of its $150 million green bond. The environmental nonprofit offered the 10-year notes in order to expand its Working Forest Fund. CFN spoke to Conservation Fund CEO Larry Selzer about how the organization will use bond funds, the experience of offering a bond as a nonprofit, and the significance of the project for the conservation finance field.
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new series called the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit. This series of articles focuses on individual tools practitioners can use. Our goal is to span the range of comfort levels our readers have – from simple to challenging.
This article by Eve Boyce and Marcy Lyman is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. In an increasing number of communities across the country, utilities are working with conservation groups to ensure the ecosystem services provided by healthy watersheds are protected and maintained. This strategy doesn’t simply provide cost savings to water companies. It can also create a new source of funding and constituencies for land conservation.
This article by Nathalie Woolworth and Hazel Wong is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. Ballot measures, also known as initiatives or propositions, are instruments of direct democracy that allow voters to directly shape public policy in the voting booth.
This article by Maria Martinez is part of the Conservation Finance Network Toolkit, a resource designed for professionals who want to learn or communicate about the industry. State revolving funds (SRFs) have been used for decades as a source of low-cost financing for a variety of water-infrastructure projects.
