Alice Chapple

Background

I head up our work on finding ways to get more finance to flow to sustainable activities and less to unsustainable ones. We look at the reasons why investors find it so hard to make this happen, and we try to identify what will make this change. This involves exploring how people view risk, which assets are undervalued (for example, climate regulation, clean water or social stability), and the culture and incentives underpinning behaviour in the finance system.

I have spent most of my career in development finance, assessing the social, environmental, economic and financial returns of businesses in a wide range of sectors including forestry, sugar, textiles, telecommunications, energy generation and mining. I have worked in lots of different parts of the world including Indonesia, China, Bangladesh, India, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, Brazil and Bolivia. I spent three years living in Swaziland managing the portfolio of development finance institution CDC. Since joining Forum for the Future in 2006, I have worked on projects relating to finance for adaptation, cleantech, microfinance and forests and have also worked with the insurance industry on their response to climate change risks. And I have written quite a bit on the flaws in the finance system that prevent sustainable outcomes.

My dream project? My dream project would involve starting a Pioneering Sustainable Solutions fund with investors of all shapes and sizes to invest in a range of exciting, innovative activities to address sustainability challenges. The fund would be aligned with a vision of the sustainable global economy and the investments we need to get there, so it would select investments in – for example - cleantech, forests, small and growing sustainable businesses (SGSBs), ecosystems services, resilient crops and social housing.

What floats my boat outside work? I am married with 3 children, live in Dorset, and enjoy long-distance running and swimming in the sea.