SENIOR FELLOW

Mark is a Senior Fellow at Orbitas and Climate Advisers. He currently serves as the Executive Director of the Voluntary Carbon Markets Initiative (VCMI). An economist with twenty-five years’ experience working on climate change, his previous roles include CEO of Mongoose Energy and international nonprofit The Climate Group, senior policy officer at WWF, climate change advisor to the Ecuadorian government and lecturer at the Catholic University in Quito. He is currently Chair of Brighton and Hove Energy Services Coop, the Reneum Advisory Council, the RE100 Advisory Committee and the BP Carbon Advisory Panel and a board member of Community Energy England and Verra.

kenber@orbitas.finance

SENIOR FELLOW

Dr Alexandre Köberle is a Senior Fellow at Orbitas and Climate Advisers. Dr Köberle is an Advanced Research Fellow at the Grantham Institute at Imperial College London. His research focuses on long-term scenarios of socio-environmental change, with special focus on nexus approaches to explore transitions to alternative sustainable development futures. His interdisciplinary work uses mathematical models to develop plausible scenarios useful for stakeholders to not only enable the transition but also to identify risks and opportunities for improved human welfare and environmental sustainability. He is particularly interested in transformative systems approaches exploring nexuses across sectors and disciplines such as nature-food-finance or climate-land-energy-water and emerging trade-offs and synergies with sustainable and inclusive development objectives. At Grantham, Dr Köberle leads several projects on the nexus of nature, climate, food, land, energy, and finance. He is Principal Investigator of the recently awarded FiNaClim-SD project funded by NERC and Finance for Biodiversity exploring transition pathways to net-zero/nature-positive futures in the context of sustainable development. He is also Principal Investigator of the Brazil Study for the Food Systems Economics Commission (FSEC) examining sustainability transitions in Brazilian agriculture through modelled scenarios and trends analysis.

koberle@orbitas.finance

SENIOR FELLOW

Michael is a Senior Fellow at Orbitas and Climate Advisers. Michael Obersteiner is the Director of the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. His research experience stretches from biophysical modelling in the areas of ecosystems, forestry and agriculture to economics, finance and integrated assessment, and he works across ECI’s research themes. Professor Obersteiner joined the institute from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), where he was the Director of the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program. He joined the IIASA Forestry Program in 1993 and has been leading and developing the ESM Program, which is currently the largest research program at IIASA, since 2011. Professor Obersteiner’s background includes the fields of global terrestrial ecosystems and economics, having completed graduate studies both in Austria (BOKU University and Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna) and abroad (Columbia University, New York and Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk). Under his leadership several national and international organizations, including inter alia the European Commission, WWF, OECD, and other national and international institutions have received science-based policy advice using quantitative modelling techniques. He is author of over 250 scientific papers and is a highly-cited researcher – ranking in the top 1% of citations in the Web of Science according to Clarivate research.

obersteiner@orbitas.finance

COMMUNICATIONS LEAD

Kyle Saukas is the Deputy Director of Communications for Climate Advisers and serves as the Communications Lead for Orbits. He focuses on executing Orbitas’ strategic communications vision to translate the risks and opportunities within climate transitions to investors and other stakeholders in commodity supply chains. He has led the creation and development of social, earned and paid media campaigns, as well as, the development of novel thought leadership to advance climate solutions.

saukas@orbitas.finance

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

Emma McMahon is Senior Associate of Climate-Related Risk for Orbitas, where she works on financial transparency, data analytics, and sustainability. She has previously led projects in forest legality and strategic litigation and worked on domestic U.S. energy/environmental policy and politics, international climate policy, and diplomacy projects. She is a graduate from Yale University where she earned a Master’s in Business Administration. While there, she led the Business and Environment student organization. She also holds a BA in Economics with a focus in International Relations from Wellesley College.

mcmahon@orbitas.finance

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

Cathy Wu is Senior Associate of Climate-Related Risk for Orbitas, where she works on economic and financial modeling, data analytics, and sustainability. She has previously worked as a research assistant at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and conducted research on Career & Technical Education. Cathy graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a Ph.D. in Economics, and her research focuses on Environmental Economics, the Economics of Education, and Labor Economics. She holds a master’s degree in Finance from Purdue University. She also holds a bachelor’s degree in Finance and a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Missouri – Kansas City.

wu@orbitas.finance

SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATE

Kyra Althaus is a Senior Communications Associate at Climate Advisers and Orbitas where she focuses on enhancing Orbitas’ strategic communications efforts. Previously, Kyra has worked as a research assistant at the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs analyzing public opinion, television writing, and international digital rights. She has also worked at the Cline Center for Advanced Social Research and the Middle East Media Research Institute where she has supported the creation and development of new websites, social media campaigns, and other strategic communications efforts.

althaus@orbitas.finance

ASSOCIATE

Alec Estabrook is a Climate-Related Risk Associate for Orbitas, where he works on financial transparency, data analytics, and sustainability within the Orbitas team. He has previously led projects researching agricultural commodities, and performing climate and supply chain modeling while a member of McKinsey’s agricultural Capabilities and Insights team. He is a graduate of Northeastern University where he earned a BS in Political Science and Environmental Science, concentrating in economics. While there, he conducted research into the exploitation of Southeast Asian Fish stocks as well as explored the potential cost of Climate Change to the region’s fishing economy.

estabrook@orbitas.finance