Daniel Ortega Pacheco

Daniel has fifteen years of experience in environmental economic policy, sustainable & climate finance, and bioeconomy.

He is currently Co-Chair of the Voluntary Carbon Market Council’s Expert Panel.

Daniel expertise covers climate finance and international negotiations in major multilateral environmental agreements for many years. Ortega is a former member of the United Nations Executive Board for the Clean Development Mechanism, the Global Environmental Facility, the International Renewable Energy Agency and and the Advisory Committee for the Green Bonds Principles at the International Carbon Market Association.

He served as Minister of Environment and was instrumental to achieve an ambitious outcome on resource mobilization for reducing deforestation as part of the Paris Climate Agreement.

He is Director of the Center of Public Policy Development at ESPOL Polytechnic University and a Visiting Lecturer at ESPAE School of Management. Daniel found and leads the Sustainable Finance Initiative of Ecuador and Plataforma Carbono, leading public-private partnerships mobilizing public administrators, international organization, businesses and institutional investors in support of sustainable development goals achievement and climate action.

His current research aims at contributing to unleash the transformative role that Sustainable Finance can play in Latin-American with support from the Impact and Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium and UNPRME Working Group in Sustainable Finance. As observer to the UN Committee of Experts in Public Administration, he is promoting opportunities to climate debt relief and the use of high-quality and high-integrity carbon credits in the context of debt-for-climate swaps.

Ortega holds a PhD in public policy and management from the Ohio State University. He earned an MSc in Agricultural & Environmental Economics from Michigan State University and graduated with honors from EARTH University with a BA in Agricultural Science and.