The Role of Market-Based Instruments in Achieving Environmental Benefits

  • November 02, 2011
  • 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
  • Navigant Consulting, One Market Street, Spear Street Tower, Suite 1200, San Francisco, CA 94105 (Next to the Embarcadero BART station)
  • 12

Registration

  • all levels of membership
  • Non-member Registration- Attend in Person

Topic: Freshwater, clean air, flood control: How do market-based instruments provide some of our most basic ecosystem services in California and abroad? 

Over the last ten years, carbon and renewable energy credit markets have attracted much attention for their sheer size, but how good are they at actually delivering environmental benefits? Temporary water leasing has protected large volumes of water for instream conservation, but resulted in very few permanent transactions.  Join AWWEE for a panel discussion with experts on water, carbon and habitat restoration markets to discuss how cap-and-trade, payments for environmental services and other innovative market mechanisms can be used more effectively to protect resources in California and the West.

Panel:

Moderator: Laura Meadors, Director of Cleantech, SKTA has ten years of experience in environmental finance and cleantech markets. Her experience spans brokerage and structured transaction experience in renewable energy credits, emission reduction credit (ERC) markets, power purchase agreements and water leasing and banking in Oregon. She has consulted internationally on sustainable finance strategies for coastal ecosystem conservation in the Indian Ocean and on the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. 

Jessica Fox, Senior Project Manager, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) leads EPRI’s Water Quality Trading programs, most recently including the Ohio River Basin Trading Project.  For the last 9 years she has researched and implemented market-based approaches for ecosystem service protection.   She is a certified associate ecologist by the Ecological Society of America, and serves as a special advisor to EPA for developing environmental education curriculum for youth.  Her work has been printed by J. Conservation Biology, Environmental Law Institute, Island Press, Earthscan, Stetson Law School, and The Ecosystem Marketplace.  

Laura Harnish joined EDF in 2007 as West Coast Deputy Regional Director and to lead the California water program. In 2008 she became Regional Director for offices in San Francisco, Sacramento and Los Angeles. She led her water team to broker the landmark statewide water reform package of 2009 to protect and restore the San Francisco Bay Delta that provides water for 23 million Californians and habitat to many endangered and threatened species like Chinook salmon. Schwarzenegger hailed the reform as "the most comprehensive water package in nearly half a century."

Jennifer Martin, Executive Director, Center for Resource Solutions (CRS) runs the Green-e certification programs for renewable energy and carbon credits. She brings over two decades of NGO and private sector experience in renewable energy, energy efficiency, distributed generation and climate change policy and regulation. She is a founding board member of the San Francisco Carbon Collaborative, a member of the WREGIS Stakeholder Advisory Committee and served as Technical Chairperson of the WREGIS Operational Rules Committee, and a member of the Federal State Renewable Portfolio Standard Collaborative Advisory Group.

Belinda Morris, Regional Director, Center for Conservation Initiatives, Environmental Defense Fund develops market-based incentives for conserving biodiversity and natural resources including working landscapes, reducing greenhouse gas emissions from land use and advancing land-based carbon offsets, and improving water quality. Prior to joining EDF, she was Senior Economic Advisor and Ecosystem Services Coordinator at The Nature Conservancy. She brings a strong international perspective, having worked for, and consulted to, the World Bank, the World Wildlife Fund, the UK Department for International Development, the European Union and UNEP on economic approaches to environmental problems in Africa, Southeast Asia and South America.

Agenda:

6:00 to 6:30pm: Welcome Reception

6:30 to 7:45pm: Panel Discussion

7:45 to 8:30pm: Networking (light refreshments generously provided by Navigant Consulting)

Registration: Free for members and $35 for non-members.

Cancellations: Space is limited; please send an e-mail to caroline@awwee.org if you need to cancel. This will help us ensure availability to others who are interested in attending.