Conservation Finance Network

Greenprint Partners is field-testing a green infrastructure-financing approach that could help make communities healthier and safer in a small group of Rust Belt cities. In an interview, Nicole Chavas, the company’s CEO and cofounder, and Rose Jordan, its marketing director, said the models have expansion potential. If adopted on a...

Among the piping plovers and marsh grasses of New Jersey’s scenic coast, environmentalists and communities are busy creating green infrastructure to shield the shorelines from storm damage while supporting local economies. The Coastal Resilience Collaborative, the New Jersey Resilient Coastlines Initiative, and the NJ Climate Adaptation Alliance are bringing financial...

National news coverage of Hurricane Harvey in 2017 painted a bleak picture of Houston’s ability to face severe storms. Some articles portrayed urban sprawl as having wiped out the city’s ability to cope with natural disasters, saying Texas policies were to blame.

Forward-thinking nonprofits and environmentally driven investors are increasingly using blueprint reports to help develop conservation finance markets. Blueprints are in-depth proposals designed to provide investors and stakeholders with creative ways to source cash flows and investment opportunities within key conservation areas.

What if the development of these approaches could be responsibly accelerated? What if we could shorten the time it takes for environmental markets and investment vehicles to be defined, piloted, scaled, and matured—without cutting corners? The

The practice of raising and managing capital to support land, water, and natural resource conservation.

Network’s recent report, “Private Capital and Working Lands Conservation: A Market Development...

Timing can make or break a conservation deal. Land trusts and other conservation groups often work with motivated sellers who must divest property by a certain date or are otherwise eager to close deals quickly. The organizations must either gather the required financing on the sellers’ short timelines or forego...

The 2016 Aspen-Nicholas Water Forum, hosted by Aspen Institute and Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, showed the role of impact investing in bridging the financing gap in the water sector. The resulting report, “Conservation Finance &

Investments that combine financial returns with social and/or environmental benefits.

for U.S. Water,” offers case studies and analyses of new tools...

How can the growing community of practice around natural capital approaches continue to engage, learn and adapt? The 2017 Natural Capital Symposium discussed this question at Stanford University on Mar. 20-23. A key session was titled “Securing Freshwater through Innovative Public and Private Partnerships.” This session showed examples of innovations...

Consider this: The $400 billion in private environmental finance needed annually, according to Credit Suisse and McKinsey & Company, is eight times even the more generous current estimates of conservation finance. Practitioners and experts gathered last month at the New York City office of Credit Suisse to explore how to...