Can capital markets deliver environmental benefits?

On Tuesday night, over seventy people filed into Room 220 in NYU’s Vanderbilt Hall. The lecture space filled quickly as people settled in with notebooks and laptops, fixing their gazes toward the podium at the front of the room. At first glance, it could have been any normal night class at NYU Law; however, closer scrutiny showed some surprising elements. There were a strange number of people in pinstriped suits, for one. And a table of Tostitos and pastries. And an unusual assembly in the front: Adam Freed, a key member of Bloomberg’s PlaNYC crew; Reuben Teague, a social entrepreneur and Echoing Green Fellow working for green housing in New Orleans through Green Coast Enterprises; Kathy Baczko, New York City’s main advocate at the Clinton Climate Initiative; and Susan Leeds, from the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Center for Market Innovation. Kicking things off was Alisa Valderrama, the executive director of EcoNext, an organization designed to tackle the big problem of the night: Can capital markets deliver environmental benefits?

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