Our Story
As friends and colleagues of many years, we are united in our ambition to help build a more sustainable, equitable future and solve the climate crisis. In early 2018, we began a conversation on how best to utilise our 35 years of combined experience in the sector. Just over two years after the adoption of the Paris Agreement and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we saw climate and sustainable finance as having reached an inflection point: investment by the world’s largest multilateral development banks (MDBs) had risen to record levels, the EU Commission had put in place a sustainable finance action plan, and private investment saw renewable energy capacity continue to grow at a record pace.
However, these efforts were really only scratching the surface. To unlock the trillions of $ of necessary financial flows, more information about conditions on the ground and the effectiveness of investments aligned with climate action and sustainable development was and is needed. Yet little centralised, standardised and reliable data for developing and transition economies currently exists and what does exist is often difficult to access. We decided to set out and fill this gap by building an innovative database that tracks investments and their impact, maps challenges to climate and sustainable finance, and aligns them with solutions.
SUFINDA was incorporated in London in December 2018 as a community interest company (C.I.C.), a UK corporate structure which operates for the benefit of its membership and/or audience. In our case this means the global community of climate and sustainable finance researchers, decision makers and investors. In early 2019, SOAS University of London created the Centre for Sustainable Finance which acts as academic host for SUFINDA’s Climate and Sustainable Finance Data Initiative.
- Felicia and Harald
CEO & co-Founder
Felicia Jackson
Felicia is an experienced entrepreneur who has successfully fund-raised, founded and built businesses in the data and information sector. She was a co-founder of New Energy Finance (now owned by Bloomberg as Bloomberg NEF), works as a board advisor to a number of companies, and provides consultancy services to SMEs and multinationals. She is currently a member of a UNEP technical expert group developing a methodology for targets and indicators for SDG 17.7.1. A European contributor to Forbes.com, she is the author of Conquering Carbon: Carbon Emissions, Carbon Markets and the Consumer (New Holland Publishers, 2009) and her work has appeared in numerous specialist titles in the renewable energy and cleantech space as well as The Times, The Guardian, The Independent and the Huffington Post.
director & co-founder
Harald Heubaum
Harald is an experienced academic and consultant working at the intersection of policymaking, governance and markets in the climate and energy space. He is the founder and convenor of the MSc Global Energy & Climate Policy at SOAS University of London, where he also serves as Deputy Director of the Centre for Sustainable Finance. He has consulted for a range of international clients, including the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), UNEP, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) and the World Bank. His commentary has appeared in a number of news outlets, including The Times, CNN, NBC, The South China Morning Post and Climate Home. He holds a PhD in Political Science - analysing the framing of climate and energy policies - from University College London.
Chief Operating Officer
James Dunn
Jim is an seasoned IT programme manager. He has over 25 years experience delivering infrastructure, application and web development, and six sigma projects and programmes in Europe, the Americas, Asia Pacific and Oceania for multiple clients in the IT, telecoms, banking, government & services sectors. He has held positions with British Telecom, Telstra Global, Cathay Pacific and Cisco Systems. He has a deep interest in the environment and sustainability and is currently in his final year as a graduate student completing an MSc in Sustainable Development with a specialism in Environmental Management at SOAS University of London and shortly commencing an LLM in Environmental Law with a specialism in Natural Resources Law and International Dispute Resolution at Queen Mary University of London.
Chief Marketing Officer
Arnaud Cartigny
Arnaud is a qualified engineer with a master's degree in Strategy and Management of International Business from ESSEC Business School, France. For more than 12 years, he worked in the telecommunications industry in France (Bouygues Telecom) and Belgium (Anatole International), holding various operational and functional positions of increasing responsibility. His experience includes telecoms engineering, project management, procurement and marketing. As a journalist, Arnaud contributed to the Belgian financial and economic daily newspaper L'Echo and to scientific magazines as well as environmental consultancy CO2logic. He recently graduated with an MSc in Sustainable Development from SOAS, University of London.
development & Stakeholder Engagement
Louisa Harris
Louisa is a connector, systems thinker and change agent. She has over 8 years’ experience working in UK advisory firms driving business as a force for good and unlocking the potential of individuals and collectives to create positive impact. Her experience includes strategy design and implementation, reporting, ESG assurance, culture change, co-creation and leadership. Louisa is Head at 6heads, a sustainability and innovation community which serves as a platform for professionals to lead, develop, learn and co-create. She has worked with HM Government’s Inclusive Economy Partnership, the UK National Advisory Board for Impact Investing, the World Benchmarking Alliance, Future-Fit Business Benchmark’s Development Council and the Marine Foundation’s creative team.
Researcher
Youssef Becha
Youssef is a research intern at SUFINDA, where he is assessing taxonomies across different sectors with the aim of integrating them into a sustainable taxonomy. He is a final year student currently completing a BA in Economics and Politics at SOAS University of London. He previously worked at UNESCO in projects in relation to the 2030 UN SDGs.
Researcher
Stanford Muchongwe
Stanford is currently enrolled on the MSc Public Policy and Management at SOAS University of London. He has been involved in the crafting of the Zimbabwe Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) under the Paris Agreement as well as in designing creative climate finance mechanisms and sits on the country's NDC Implementation Committee. He provides climate change and climate finance advisory to the Treasury of Zimbabwe in his capacity as the focal person dealing with alternative sources of financing that seek to support climate change mitigation and adaptation. He has been part of the Zimbabwe delegation to various UNFCCC Conferences of Parties (COP).
Researcher
Max Schmidt
Max recently graduated from SOAS with an MSc in Research for International Development, focussing on global coal developments. He supports Felicia Jackson in updating her book Conquering Carbon as well as on a systems education project focused on climate and the SDGs. He currently interns with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), a Geneva-based energy and climate think tank, specialising in energy subsidies and their reform in South Africa and India.