Conservation Finance Network

In June, conservation finance practitioners reconnected in a stone skyscraper overlooking New York City's Madison Square Park for Credit Suisse's annual conference. This story excerpts a dialogue between Emma Crystal, the bank's chief sustainability officer, and a BlackRock research leader named Chris Weber.

This January, Environmental Defense Fund and Farmers Business Network launched the pilot Regenerative Agriculture Finance Fund (RAFF). Enrolled farmers who meet soil health and nitrogen efficiency standards will access a 0.5% discount on a one-year credit line. This product, years in the making, aims to update farm financing.

Organizations across the country, and across land types, are working to implement aggregation projects to help family forest owners, small farmers, and all those who own smaller parcels of land. These projects serve farmer whose priorities may differ internally and in comparison to commercial operations.

In looking at forest restoration finance in a tropical context, three experts at a Yale-sponsored panel spoke of clearer images from space and more inclusive planning on the ground.

Intractable social and environmental problems require collective action. These challenges demand that we step beyond individual mission statements and business models to craft strategies, chart paths forward, and unlock scaled impact—together. A new guide draws on lessons from convenings around the world to make gatherings more enjoyable and effective.

Every year, the Land Trust Alliance Rally unites practitioners across the conservation finance firmament. The 2021 rally weighed more in our memories, marking an end to isolation and raising our prospects. Our team members reflect below.

District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water) created a municipal bond that covers the downside risk of using green infrastructure to control stormwater runoff. By offloading risk to investors, the utility drew new financing -and time to get its practices right. Now other cities are following its lead.

I have always envisioned myself as the wildlife field biologist who camps in the woods or sleeps on a boat. But while attending the boot camp, I found that the difference between fundraising and financing affected whether an organization could sustain its projects.

The National Philanthropic Trust’s 2017 Donor-Advised Fund Report found that the capital housed in donor-advised funds across the United States exceeded $85 billion in 2016. This represents an almost 10-percent increase since 2015 and a 28-percent increase since 2012.

Conservation managers and entrepreneurs who are looking to make their projects stand out as investment opportunities should be sure to supply the information that investors want. Impact investing experts interviewed by

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

Network expressed a surprising lack of interest in most impact metrics and measurements aside from carbon sequestration...