Adam Davis – Bio
Adam is the President of Solano Partners, Inc., a consulting firm focused on environmental investment and conservation finance issues. Recent projects have addressed the use of conservation and restoration incentives on Trust Lands and in the Puget Sound Partnership, and the use of these incentives in Foundation grantmaking strategy.
He is also a Partner in Ecosystem Investment Partners (EIP), a private equity management firm that acquires and manages high priority conservation properties across the United States. EIP delivers competitive returns to its investors through the use of new, market-based mechanisms that reward landowners for the restoration and protection of their natural resources (such as wetlands, streams and endangered species), as well as the sustainable use of more traditional resources (such as forestry and agriculture).
He is a Co-Founder and previous Editor-in-Chief of the Ecosystem Marketplace, a global information service on market mechanisms and financial incentives for conservation. Adam is a member of the Advisory Council for the Aldo Leopold Leadership Program which provides training for environmental scientists from across the United States in public speaking and communications. Adam’s work was recently featured in The New Economy of Nature, by Daily and Ellison, and he received the 2002 Ecological Society of America corporate award for “his contribution to the understanding of connections between recycling, resource recovery and ecosystem health.”
Originally from Baltimore, Adam is a graduate of Cornell University where he earned a B.A. cum laude in Africana Studies in 1978. His recent publications include a chapter to From Walden to Wall Street (Levitt, 2005) and co-authored a chapter in The Endangered Species Act at Thirty (Scott, Goble, and Davis, in publication), both from Island Press. He has appeared on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer and NPR, and has lectured on ecological economics and applied ecosystem service theory at Stanford, Yale, Cornell, UC Berkeley and the Presidio School of Management.
Adam served as Director of the Environment Division for EPRIsolutions, a consulting firm owned by the Electric Power Research Institute. This Division of EPRI develops financial value from land and ecosystem conservation strategies for private sector clients. His team there used the sciences of ecological economics, restoration ecology and conservation biology, combined with decision analysis tools, appraisal methods and tax strategies to enable market based conservation choices.
Adam also co-founded and served as Principal at Natural Strategies, Inc., a management consulting firm working with companies to integrate sustainability principles into business strategy. Core clients included British Petroleum (Solar division), John Hancock Financial Services, Lowe’s (home improvement stores), Southern California Edison, Genencor International, and the State of California (Cal EPA).
Adam got his start in business by driving a truck and operating a front-end loader for a local composting company. He became fascinated by the whole question of economic incentives for environmental outcomes, and he ended up spending nearly ten years at Waste Management, Inc., the world's largest recycling and solid waste management company. While at WMI, he implemented programs to recycle a wide range of materials including tires, motor oil, and construction and demolition debris, as well as more traditional curbside stuff. He conceived and developed collection and marketing systems that now process and recycle over 500,000 tons of green waste each year in the Northern California area. He also managed clean up efforts on Kauai following Hurricane Iniki, and was co-founder of the Council for International Disaster Debris Management.
Adam lives in San Rafael, California with his wife of 20 years, Sara Pearson, and two spectacular daughters, Ella and Olivia, ages 18 and 14.
Contact Information:
Adam Davis
President, Solano Partners, Inc.
1005 A Street, Suite 313
San Rafael, CA 94901
Office: (415) 462-0163
