[Full Length] Money: In Service of Nature? — with Eric Smith

Written By alexa firmenich

“We are extractive from our producers. If you want to get back to improving the land, you have to return wealth back to those producers. They know the land better than anyone. They're the reason we're alive.”

- Eric Smith

 

SYNOPSIS:

Eric Smith has spent his career working at the intersection of economics and nature. Most recently he was the director of the venture capital vehicle Neglected Climate Opportunities (NCO) at the Grantham Environmental Trust, where he co-led over 40 direct investments in startups across all stages that can remove carbon and GHG at scale. He was previously with SJF Ventures and worked for BlackRock on climate finance, and currently is Founder/CEO of Edacious, a company working to differentiate food quality and connect the dots between soil and human health. Eric is also a dear friend and someone with whom I often converse on our shared focus of investing on behalf of nature.

We were both in Mexico for a climate investing conference and caught up, beachside sand rolling in, on everything from:

  • His personal background in forestry and building certification frameworks around natural resource operations;

  • Working in Costa Rica on their Payment for Ecosystem Services model;

  • The tensions in regenerative agriculture and nature conservation;

  • Why he supports EO Wilson’s Half Earth theory;

  • If narrow metrics can ever be proxy enough for the complexity of a system;

  • The intrinsic vs economic values of nature;

  • Examples of startups and nature-serving businesses, and which ones are not suited for a venture capital model;

  • And more….

 

GUEST BIO:

Eric Smith has spent his career at the intersection of ecology and economy. He was most recently Director of Neglected Climate Opportunities (NCO), the Grantham Environmental Trust's venture capital vehicle. He led investments in businesses and technology that can remove carbon and GHG at scale. NCO includes more than 45 direct investments in startups across all stages as well as funding of numerous grant-to-commercialization opportunities designed to incubate new firms from academia and non-profits.

Eric was previously with SJF Ventures and worked for BlackRock on climate finance, in addition to providing advisory and audit services to forest carbon and other natural resource management projects. He is a graduate of the dual degree program at Duke University, having received his MBA and Master of Forestry. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Costa Rica, supporting women's banking institutions and building recycling programs on the border of Nicaragua.

He is currently Founder/CEO of Edacious, a company working to differentiate food quality and connect the dots between soil and human health.

QUOTES:

  • You have to be on the ground sitting alongside the stakeholders, and part of that process is talking to nature, and feeling.

  • That is the crux of systems change — reorienting financial decision-making to be more holistic in the way that it allocates resources.

  • I don’t think we use debt enough for many of our regenerative agriculture investments. Debt has a certain structure in terms of the patience around it that allows for very clear expectations and a very clear contract.

  • We are extractive from our producers. If you want to get back to improving the land, you have to return wealth back to those producers. They know the land better than anyone. They're the reason we're alive.

SHOW NOTES

LINKS:

REGENERATIVE ECONOMICS

FINANCE FOR NATURE

YOU MAY ALSO LIKE

alexa firmenich
Previous

[Full Length] Money: In Service of Nature? — with Lorenzo de Rosenzweig
Next

5. The Indigenous View: Protocols, Ceremony and Totem Poles — with Tyson Yunkaporta & Joe Martin (Tutakwisnapšiƛ)