James Smith

Dr James R. Smith is Senior Manager for Scaling Positive Agriculture at WBCSD, where he leads the Agriculture for 1.5 project, a dedicated platform for food and agri sector companies across the value chain to tackle material climate challenges with the objective of supporting companies to commit to and accelerate towards Net Zero. To deliver this objective, James helps build the capacity of food and agri companies to implement relevant carbon accounting and climate target setting initiatives (such as the GHG Protocol Land Sector update and SBTi FLAG), and works with companies to develop collaborations to address scope 3 emissions across diverse value chains. James’ particular interest is in scaling Nature-based Solutions (NbS) within the agriculture sector, with the goal to ensure that these solutions that deliver climate, biodiversity, farmer and adaptation outcomes contribute their full potential to corporate decarbonization through ‘insetting’ approaches.

Prior to this, James led WBCSD’s work to scale private sector investment into natural climate solutions (NCS) for climate mitigation and adaptation outcomes, and convened the Natural Climate Solutions Alliance, a multistakeholder coalition conveying the voice of businesses, NGOs and solution providers on the need to mobilize a high-integrity demand for high-quality NCS. James’ expertise on NCS includes project development and implementation, and the role that NCS can play as part of a corporate net zero strategy and in achieving impact at scale.

James has a PhD in Ecosystem Management, and experience developing and investing in nature-based solutions projects through voluntary carbon markets and regenerative agricultural practices.