James Smith

Director, Head of NbS Carbon - Posaidon Capital

James has substantial experience in nature-based carbon markets, with previous roles including Director of Natural Climate Solutions at WBCSD (where he also led the multi-stakeholder coalition the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance), technical REDD+ and forest carbon officer at Althelia and Mirova Natural Capital, forest carbon specialist at Fauna & Flora International and project officer at IUCN where his work focused on blue carbon. Consequently, James possesses significant experience on both the buy-side (purchase and use of credits) and sell side (project development, implementation and sale of credits) for international carbon markets, with particular technical expertise in project design, the major standards and methodologies, assessing project feasibility and due diligence, and structuring of NbS carbon investments.

James has developed and invested in NbS carbon projects across all major tropical forest regions including Amazonia and LATAM, West Africa and Southeast Asia. He holds a PhD in Tropical Forest Ecology from the ETH Zürich (Switzerland), an MRes in Ecology and Environmental Management from the University of York (UK), and a B.A. in Biological Sciences from the University of Oxford (UK).

James participates/participated in multiple fora focused on developing high-quality methods and markets for NbS carbon including as a Member of the NCS Alliance’s Technical Advisory Group, Verra’s Blue Carbon Expert Working Group and VERRA’s Jurisdictional Nested REDD+ Stakeholder Working Group.