Case Studies in Conservation Finance Case 5: Zach Knight Blue Forest Conservation

As fires rage across the entire Western US parts of Russia the Amazon and elsewhere it has become clear that fires have become a huge environmental social and economic issue. But what the apocalyptic images coming out of San Francisco and Portland dont tell you is what might be done to address this problem. We talk to Zach Knight Co-Founder and CEO of Blue Forest Conservation a company that seeks to come up with innovative approaches to conservation finance. Their first project which launched last year after several years of planning is the Forest Resilience Bond. The idea behind this innovative approach is to create a pay-for-success structure to address forest fires an idea that could not be more timely. Essentially the structure is designed to bring together US parties who are affected by forest firesincluding the USDA Forest Service water utilities and insurersand get them to agree to pay for the sort of forest remediation practices that prevent or minimize forest fires: practices like thinning prescribed burns and others. The genius behind the structure however is that it raises money from investors to do the work and then gets the interested parties to agree to pay it back over time. Currently Blue Forest is working on a pilot of this initiative in California. Zach tells us more about the fires engulfing western North America the idea and how it could help address future fires what it took to get a pilot going and where he sees things going from here. Zach Knight is a co-Founder and the CEO of Blue Forest. Prior to founding Blue Forest Zach started his career in finance at Merrill Lynch where he specialized in structured finance. Zach also served as a high-yield and distressed corporate bond trader before leaving Wall Street to pursue an MBA at UC-Berkeleys Haas School of Business with a focus on sustainability and environmental investing. Zach holds an MBA with honors from UC Berkeley and a BA in economics from Cornell. At BFC Zach leads the outreach program with foundations and the conservation finance community. Zach also leads BFCs engagement with the US Forest Service and the State of California. A passionate finance nerd Zach loves digging into new structures contracts and anything related to financial engineering. Hosted by Ricardo Bayon Originally aired October 13 2020,

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