Transcript:

Tracy Bain: What worked well in this partnership? 

Brandy Lellou: What's really worked well in this partnership is that ability for us to continue to communicate through every phase of the project.

Hello, I'm Brandy Lellou, head of programs at Trees for the Future, and I'm here with Tracy Bain, head of monitoring and engagement with Catona Climate.

Tracy Bain: You know, we laugh when we say that we're on WhatsApp all the time, and I probably message you way more than you want to hear from me. But the reality is, you guys communicate so well when things happen. I know at one point we got a call and one of the challenges that came up was that a hippo walked through part of the seedling nursery.

I mean, you can't make this up. A hippo strolled through the nursery and destroyed some of the seedlings. What do you do? Well, I asked that question, and I remember your team telling me: “Well, we immediately went out there, we repaired the barriers around the nursery. We strengthened them. We put in essentially protections that even a hippo can't get through.”

But you'll also tell us when successes occur. You tell us when there’s an event happening or when you've achieved a really great milestone. And that is critical for us to have that information, not just so we can share them with our credit buyers, with project investors, but also so that way we can celebrate with you guys those wins, and we can collaborate together and try to come up with solutions. So I think that that level of transparent and frequent communication has really made this project successful and ultimately made this partnership successful.

Transcript:

Tracy Bain: What were some of the things that we were able to achieve together that would have been more difficult to achieve alone?

Brandy Lellou: One thing that's really worked well is the bioacoustic monitoring, and that is a relationship that Catona began with WildMon. We had started a biodiversity study with the University of Nairobi and the Wangari Maathai Institute, but we didn't really realize what we would need to monitor. So bringing on WildMon early in the project and getting that baseline study was really critical and was something that we had not had the foresight for, but Catona brought in that partnership. 

Also throughout the PDD [Project Design Document] development, there are so many complexities in developing the PDD. So having consistent input on that, having the third party auditor coming out early and the PDD development really gave some insight into elements that we might be missing and things to really focus on. Finding the technical capabilities to develop the PDD and finalize the PDD was a challenge. But I think that Catona worked really well with us through that and then also asking the right questions throughout the process.

Transcript:

Brandy Lellou: What advice would you give to developers who are looking for investors?

Tracy Bain: There's two real key pieces of advice that I would give. First, have an investor strategy. So a developer should say, what are the strengths? What are the capacity needs? What are the gaps that we have and that investor can come in and fill? So an investor's primary goal is to provide that financing for the project. But could they also be bringing technical capacity? Could they also be bringing experience in marketing the project? Could they also be bringing those connections to bring in different stakeholders, provide technological solution partnerships? So I think it's really critical for a project developer to think about what strategy that they want to implement for that investor partnership. 

And then second, project developers need to find the right investor for them. What are they looking for in an investor partnership? Are they looking for an investor that's brand new to the investment space? Are they looking for someone that has been in the space for a really long time? Can they find an investor that is gonna understand how carbon projects are operated? Are they gonna find the right investor that's gonna go along with them for that journey and be that supporting partner, as opposed to just looking top down at the project and wanting to see a report every so many months?

Brandy Lellou: So I think really when you're seeking an investor, looking for someone who's not only providing the investment and the funding, but really understands the market, has been through the process before, has a good relationship with Verra, has a clear understanding of the standards and the technical capability that is required. So I think one of the biggest things is just going in prepared. You might have the ability to develop carbon projects on the ground, but the other elements are much more complex. 

Tracy Bain: I think it's critical that any developer really thinks about what is that partnership, what is that relationship going to look like, and what do they really hope to get out of it.