In December 2022 the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) advocated urgency for an expedited 2025 timeline to more than double finance flows in nature-based solutions (NbS) to limit climate change to below 1.5°C, halt biodiversity loss, and achieve land degradation neutrality. UNEP published the second edition of its “State of...
Seaweed—as a food source and beyond—has the potential to be profitable and sustainable, while supporting culturally important cuisines and strengthening the base of the marine food web. Recently, interest in cultivating seaweed, especially in the United States, has grown—but anyone interested in growing seaweed, investing in it, or processing it...
Traditional biodiversity credits give financial value to investments in projects that offset regional biodiversity losses. A biocredit is a unit of biodiversity value created through interventions to conserve, restore or sustainably manage a local site. It is the unification of positive change (or “uplift”) in biodiversity conditions, approximated by place-based...
Evergreen Articles
Which way will Guatemala and other carbon markets where smallholders dominate grow? (Photo by RS, courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.)
A green sanctuary in the heart of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, Finca Chimelb hums with the melody of melodious blackbirds and chatter among local laborers. Spanning 4,751 hectares, the farm consists of rolling hills lined with high-value crops, such as cacao, specialty coffee, and cardamom, paired with rubber trees and other...
In many parts of the world, clean water is still an untapped market – but a flow of innovative finance is beginning to change this. Currently, the United Nations estimates that between $182 billion to over $600 billion annually is needed to address the global water crisis. Worldwide, millions of...
Food companies have started to incorporate regenerative agriculture into their sustainability strategies and supply chains - it’s an important buzzword today for companies, but how are they defining it? And what are they doing to support farmers in the transition? I spoke with Daily Harvest - the plant-based meal delivery...
Elizabeth Schuster, Environmental Economist, Sustainable Economies Consulting
The
Network (CFN) convened partners for their 10th CFN Roundtable, hosted in Durham, NC on November 2-3, 2022. The roundtable brought together nearly 70 practitioners representing nonprofit organizations, foundations, private sector firms, governmental agencies, and universities. The event was organized around nine different panels on a variety of...
The available level of funding does not have recent precedent,” said Leigh Whelpton, Executive Director of the
Network. This windfall of potential funding is certainly beneficial to practitioners, who often rely on initial government support to attract private investors.
In this session, panelists from a variety of organizations described their engagement in carbon markets. Spencer Meyer, Head of Science at the carbon-exchange company NCX, moderated a Zoom panel of professionals from not-for-profits, for-profits, carbon project developers, carbon project sellers, and more. Steph Harris, Director of Carbon Markets at carbon...
We are pleased to announce the launch of a new series called the
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
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...
This article by Nathalie Woolworth and Hazel Wong is part of the
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...
This article by Maria Martinez is part of the
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.
