Jessica Smith (BES, MA, MCom) leads the Nature workstream at the UNEP Finance Initiative since 2020, promoting leadership in sustainable finance across banking, insurance and investment.
For the previous 7 years she directed a consultancy firm undertaking environmental finance project development and evaluation, and leading secretariats for the Equator Principles Association (environmental and social risk in Project Finance for 100+ financial institutions) and the Cross-Sector Biodiversity Initiative (applying IFC performance standard 6 on biodiversity in oil & gas, mining, and finance).
Prior to this Jessica worked for UNEP-WCMC, IUCN and UNDP, mobilising pro-poor environment and development finance, globally and especially across Africa.
Jessica aims to bridge research and practice on nature finance and was recently lead author of the first academic publication linking conservation finance, blended finance and community-led conservation [available here Land | Free Full-Text | Getting Blended Finance to Where It’s Needed: The Case of CBNRM Enterprises in Southern Africa | HTML (mdpi.com)].