This time of year is always exciting for us. These February days herald the earliest awakenings of spring – crisp mornings bursting with new growth and possibility. Much is the same for our work.
We’ve started the year at a sprint, kicking off with our first strategy offsite and launching a few milestone projects in what’s shaping up to be an impactful 2024. Here are some highlights of recent weeks, and a few asks for our network as we look ahead.
As always, thank you for all of your support, and if we haven’t heard from you in some time, please drop us a line.
Best,
Mike, Harry and Greg
Activities
We’re excited to announce support from the Rockefeller Foundation to complete a US reforestation and land restoration demand assessment. This will supplement our existing body of work on restoration supply side challenges.
We have been heads down planning an investor roundtable hosted by Rockefeller on March 1st in NYCto make sure our research aligns with investments and to get input on our product ideas.
We have DC, Atlanta, Pittsburgh and St. Louis in the travel diary for the coming months, let us know if we can stop by.
Jake attended the Society for Range Management Conference in Reno, NV to go deeper on grassland and rangeland conservation.
Team
2024 brought the team together in New York's Catskills Mountains for our first all-hands “reTreet.” We balanced mission and strategy with fresh air in the snowy, beautiful forests around us (see photo evidence below). We're excited to translate momentum from those sessions into investment, insights and impact.
We welcomedKunsang Dorjee from the comfort of strategy consulting at Ogilvy after a BA in physics and philosophy at Yale. He’ll be helping us deliver on our reforestation demand analysis, as well as bringing the Nursery Financing Facility to market.
Reading
The World Economic Forum’s latest Global Risks Report showed consensus that extreme weather events are most likely to create a global crisis in 2024. But respondents disagreed over the urgency of risks from biodiversity loss and critical change to earth systems.
A cohort of 320 organizations, representing $14 trillion in assets under management, committed to disclosing nature-related financial risks through the Task Force on Nature-Related Financial Disclosure (TNFD) framework. Norges Bank Investment Management, which oversees Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund, highlighted significant risks to nature, specifically to water use and ecosystem conversion in its initial disclosure.
Banks and other financial institutions are beefing up their biodiversity functions -- one of the youngest but fastest growing segments of sustainable investing. In addition to emerging disclosure regulations, investors are becoming increasingly aware of potential financial risks associated with nature. In a recent survey, 72% of global investors are either “very” or “somewhat” interested in taking nature and biodiversity risks into account.
Asks
We would love to connect with partners operating or connected with Community Development Finance Institutions (CDFIs). If you are, or know anyone, please give us a shout.
That’s all for now - until next time.
Team NLC: Harry, Veenu, Greg, Kunsang, Erica, Jake, Frank & Mike
New Leaf Climate Partners, LLC, San Francisco, CA, New York, NY, United States
