Andrea Colnes

In the final session of the Yale School of Environment Series on Climate Smart Forestry, the New England Forestry Foundation (NEFF) will bring multiple elements together to provide a view on how to implement, test and scale this essential concept. NEFF will speak to our approach to defining, modeling and codifying Climate-Smart forestry through our Exemplary Forestry standards and offer insight into our regional implementation of Climate-Smart forestry through our USDA Climate Smart Commodities Partnership, working with commercial forest landowners, small family woodlot owners and on Tribal forestlands. We will also explore the intersection with markets and how climate-smart forestry can underpin a growing bio-economy. Finally, we will consider mechanisms to bring climate-smart forestry to scale through leveraged public/private financing approaches.

Speaker Biography 

Andrea serves as the Deputy Director & Climate Fellow for the New England Forestry Foundation where she focuses on high impact leveraged nature-based climate solutions through the management and protection of New England’s forests. She serves as project lead for NEFF’s $30 million USDA Climate Smart Commodities partnership project to advance forest-based natural climate solutions at home and serve as a national and global model. These efforts seek to implement NEFF’s 30% Solution as a critical part of meeting climate goals across the region.

Previously, Andrea served as the Director for Global Green Bank Development at the Coalition for Green Capital (CGC) where she lead efforts to bring the Green Bank model to developing countries to scale climate finance in support of national climate goals. Andi led CGCs efforts to support creation of the Development Bank of Southern Africa’s new Climate Finance Facility (CFF), based on the green bank model adapted for emerging market conditions which was also the first Green Climate Fund investment in a Green Bank. She led the design team at CGC for a new Rwanda Green Bank, and the African Development Bank’s scoping of Green Bank opportunities across Africa and numerous other projects. Andi was a founder of the Green Bank Network, and part of the organizing team for the global Green Bank Design Summit convened in Paris in March 2019.

Andi has led strategic campaigns focused on energy, large-scale land conservation, and sustainable forestry over a 30-year career and served as the founding Executive Director of the Northern Forest Alliance, founding Executive Director of the Energy Action Network, and directed national policy and atmospheric carbon research for the Biomass Energy Resource Center. She holds a BA in Political Science from Williams College and Master’s in Wildlife Conservation from the University of Maine.