MODERN FINANCE: This ICE Is Nice and Good for Trees

MODERN FINANCE: This ICE Is Nice and Good for Trees

By Philip Dudley

Just when you think the environmental, social and governance narrative has been exhausted in the traditional sense, a new wrinkle emerges.

Just recently, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the leadership at ACRE Investment Management, LLC in the The Plains. What I learned was fascinating. The ice caps may be melting in the Arctic, but these folks at ACRE, led by manager and co-founder Chandler Van Voorhis, are making some big waves in Virginia.

Philip Dudley

ACRE operates four companies, and while they all tie to their core mission of reforestation, it is GreenTrees and the landmark deal they recently made with Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) to auction 500,000 nature-based carbon credits that definitely has peaked my interest.

ICE is a major player in the capital markets. After all, they own and operate the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). They also have roots as a pioneer in electronic trading and meeting the needs of clients in the electric utility markets, as well as oil and natural gas markets. These businesses naturally led ICE into the world of futures exchanges and clearing on their electronic platform.

“By working with ICE, the world’s leading environmental marketplace,” Van Voorhis said recently, “we can now connect one of the largest global networks of companies to everyday landowners, who are our first responders to climate change.”

The GreenTrees and ICE collaboration solves a unique problem. You have the market leader in reforestation programs in GreenTrees leveraging ICE’s expertise in carbon trading.

So, how does it all work?

Landowners far and wide can achieve their environmental goals and receive income (translation: money in the bank) by partnering with GreenTrees. That company will, in turn, plant a forest, calculate the carbon captured and then sell that carbon to others in need of carbon credits like many Fortune 500 companies.

I believe this is a fantastic alternative to having all those unsightly wind turbines or solar panel fields in your backyard. Who wouldn’t rather look at a stand of trees knowing that you are doing your part in fighting climate change?

Basically, I’ve attempted to bring to your attention a highly sophisticated institutional level carbon credit strategy that is playing out right here in our own Middleburg area community.

So, I’m happy to raise a tree to the team at ACRE and, God willing, the two Sycamores, Shumard Oak and Appalachian Spring Dogwood we transplanted to our home in February will do their thing and add even more carbon credits to the mix.

Philip Dudley is managing partner of Dudley Capital Management in Middleburg.