AD Partners - Founding Group
Jeff Horowitz is a founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners. AD Partners’ goal is to reduce international deforestation by advancing a diverse set of market and non–market policy solutions. Prior to establishing AD Partners, Jeff was the Vice-Chair of Equator Environmental LLC, a New York based for–profit company engaged in the development of forest–carbon projects. Jeff’s work with Equator offered him a foundation for understanding the nuances needed to promote forest-carbon policies that are practical and effective. In his former life, Jeff was an internationally recognized architect and leading advocate for progressive urban and economic development policies. Jeff directed large-scale architectural projects in the US, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. In 2002, Jeff founded Urbanists International, a non-profit organization that provided urban design and land planning assistance to developing nations. In addition to his work on Climate policy, Jeff and his wife Lynn own and operate Rio Lago Ranch and Vineyard located in California’s Sonoma County. Rio Lago specializes in the production of high-end cabernet sauvignon wine grapes. Jeff holds a Masters in Architecture from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design.Dr. Charlotte Streck is a founder of Avoided Deforestation Partners. Charlotte is also Director of Climate Focus and a former Senior Counsel with the World Bank in Washington, DC. Charlotte has been actively involved in forest policy and projects throughout her career and has worked inter alia on the first forestry project under the Kyoto Protocol and establishing the Bio-Carbon Fund at the World Bank. Charlotte is an advisor to several governments, carbon funds, foundations, and not- for- profit organizations and is actively involved in the debate around the development of new carbon finance mechanisms in the area of avoided deforestation, post-Kyoto solutions, Green Investment Schemes and a reform of the current Kyoto Mechanisms. She has a background in both law and sciences and she holds a PhD in environmental law from Humboldt University in Berlin.
Rick Saines is a founding partner of Avoided Deforestation Partners and a partner at Baker & McKenzie in Chicago. He heads the U.S. arm of Baker & McKenzie’s Global Climate Change and Emissions Trading Practice Group. Mr. Saines advises multinational companies, financial institutions, funds and project sponsors on carbon and environmental market transactions under the Kyoto Protocol, EU ETS and voluntary markets. He also advises major global corporations in the area of climate change policy, sustainable development and global corporate greenhouse gas management.
Toby Janson-Smith is a founding partner of Avoided Deforestation Partners and is the Senior Director of Forest Carbon Markets at Conservation International. The program develops standards, shapes policies and secures investment deals that support multiple-benefit forest carbon activities. Toby previously directed the Climate, Community & Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA) – an international partnership between corporations, NGOs and research institutes promoting the development of forestry projects that simultaneously conserve biodiversity, foster sustainable livelihoods and mitigate climate change. In 2005, the CCBA published the first set of international standards for designing and evaluating such projects, now being used by more than 100 projects around the world. Over the past decade, Toby has consulted to a number of NGOs and companies on forest carbon issues, including: The Nature Conservancy, Union of Concerned Scientists, California Climate Action Registry, Ecosystem Marketplace and Pacific Forest Trust.
Robert O’Sullivan is a founding partner of Avoided Deforestation Partners and heads Climate Focus’s North American operations. Robert was trained as a lawyer and specializes in regulatory and policy aspects of the CDM and JI. His diverse experience covers afforestation and reforestation projects through to energy projects as well as management of CER purchase programs. He is an expert in carbon finance transactions, both on the buyers’ and sellers’ sides of the negotiation table and was one of the lead drafters of the CERSPA initiative. He was also a technical advisor to the government of Vanuatu on REDD leading up to COP 13 in Bali.