Mark has worked in investment management and advisory for thirty years, focusing on sustainable investing including for major institutional asset management companies. Mark is a co-founder of some of the first responsible investment funds firstly at Jupiter Asset Management in 1989 with the Ecology Funds, NPI with Global Care, the AMP Capital Sustainable Future Funds, and Henderson Global Investor’s Industries of the Future Funds.
Mark served on the World Business Council for Sustainable Development working group on capital markets leading up to the 1992 Earth Summit; was a Member of the Steering Committee of UNEP Financial Sector Initiative (1999-2003). Mark is a Founder Director of the UK Sustainable and Responsible Investment Forum (UKSIF), 1990-2006, is a member of the Advisory Council of ImpactBase.org; a member of the Advisory Board of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation’s ‘Conservation and Markets Initiatives’; a member of UNCTAD’s Sustainable Stock Exchange’s Green Finance Advisory Group; and is the Hon Treasurer of The Rainforest Foundation UK. Mark is an advisor to Consilium Capital and serves on the Advisory Board of Tribe Impact Capital.
As an advisor to Consilium, Mark has raised capital for a range of forestry and agricultural funds, renewable energy funds and companies. Mark is the Founder of the award winning non-profit group the Carbon Tracker Initiative and more recently ‘Planet Tracker’. Mark is responsible for management strategy, board matters and developing their capital markets framework analysis. Their goal is to align capital markets with natural ecological limits to growth.
Mark has a BA in Politics & Economic History and an M.Sc in Agricultural Economics
Martin is a Partner at Pollination, a specialist climate change advisory and investment firm, accelerating the transition to a net zero, climate resilient future. His focus at Pollination is to build out investment ideas for environmental asset classes such as natural capital and carbon markets. He joined Pollination from the European Investment Bank (EIB) where he led investments into new sectors including natural capital and the blue economy, developing new business models and blended finance solutions for more developed low carbon sectors, such as energy efficiency and renewable energy. He also supervised the Natural Capital Financing Facility, a pioneering joint EIB and European Commission initiative, and raised over EUR 2 billion for carbon, capture and storage and innovative renewable energy demonstration projects as part of the NER300 initiative. He served on the Board of Directors for the Green for Growth Fund in Luxembourg and was Vice President at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in London responsible for carbon financing. Martin also worked for the environmental investment firm RNK Capital in New York, the OECD Climate Change Unit in Paris and started his career at the UNFCCC in Bonn.
Regional Coordinator for MENA (Middle East and Northern Africa).
Policy Advisor of Food Security issues
Responsible for third country policy on Agriculture and Climate Change
Focal point for UNFCCC regarding Koronivia Joint Work on Agriculture
Focal point for Global Alliance for Climate Smart Agriculture (GACSA)
A senior Sustainability Manager specialist with more than ten years’ working experience in the public administration and private sector managing complex Strategic Plans; demonstrated ability to plan, coordinate and monitor River remediation projects in highly urbanised areas and major international Water and Environmental Natural Resources projects, to advocate and build partnerships with a variety of multi-disciplinary stakeholders, including general public, government agencies, NGO’s and businesses, as well as the capacity to be innovative, embrace and lead positive change in local communities.
ROBERT L. IZLAR, RF, CF
HARLEY LANGDALE, JR. CENTER FOR FOREST BUSINESS
WARNELL SCHOOL OF FORESTRY AND NATURAL RESOURCES
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA
ATHENS, GEORGIA 30602-2152
bizlar@uga.edu
Bob Izlar has been founding director of the UGA Harley Langdale, Jr. Center for Forest Business since 1998. He has 24 years of operational forestry experience in forest industry.
Izlar is a retired United States Army Colonel with 36 years’ service.
Michael joined the Sustainable Investments team of DWS in 2011 as portfolio manager and focuses on funds that invest into debt products targeting businesses active in the food-, trade- and renewable energy sector which includes electrification. Michael oversees the investment activities for the group on the African continent and is the responsible portfolio manager for the Africa Agriculture and Trade Investment Fund. Part of the Sustainable Investments team, Michael pursued the initiative to accredit Deutsche Bank AG with the Green Climate Fund as the first private, international bank that obtained approval for an investment concept from the GCF. The mandate focuses on climate mitigation and targets investments in decentralized energy supply solutions from renewable sources designed to expand the availability of clean electrical energy across five African countries.
Michael holds a degree in international business administration from the Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt.
Sydney is responsible for leading HNRG’s Business Development team specifically focused on capital raising, distribution, marketing operations and product development across our global institutional and high net worth markets. Prior to joining HNRG, Sydney was a Managing Director for Beacon Hill Financial Corporation, a Boston-based private placement firm with clients in the private equity buyout and energy sectors. Prior to Beacon Hill, Sydney was Manager of Project Finance with Alpine Energy Group, a private-equity funded power development firm. Early in her career, Sydney was a strategy consultant with The Parthenon Group where she performed a number of strategic consulting initiatives for global fortune 500 companies. Sydney holds a B.A. in International Studies and Art History from Middlebury College and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. She is registered with John Hancock Distributors LLC and holds Series 7 and 63 licenses.
“Alan is the Investment Specialist at WRI Brasil and is responsible for investment advice and valuation of alternative investments, focused on impact investments on land use. Prior to joining WRI Brasil, Alan began his working career in the pulp and paper sector, afterwards he joined Ibá (Brazilian Tree Industry), which is the forest industry association in Brazil. He holds a degree in Forest Engineering from the University of São Paulo (USP) and a Master of Science in forest economics from the Erasmus mundus program at the University of Freiburg in Germany and the University of Eastern Finland. Alan is also a member of Financial Innovation LAB, and he is a CFA level III candidate.”
As the founder and President of Arbonaut Ltd. I am in charge of all of its operations, including global services to timberland owners and forest administrations in twenty odd countries on six continents. Technological innovation and related application development and IT systems integration have been close to my heart even longer, as well as customer relations in many different cultures and parts of the world. My personal background is rather theoretical and I have also served as a Professor of Mathematics at Lappeenranta University of Technology as a second occupation.
