The Arbor Day Foundation’s Impact Fund has invested in Vibrant Planet and Convective Capital, expanding its forestry work into technologies designed to help reduce wildfire risk before disasters occur.
The investments extend the Foundation’s long-standing work helping forests and communities recover after wildfires into prevention, detection and resilience technologies.
Vibrant Planet is a public benefit corporation developing data-driven planning tools for communities, governments, utilities and land managers.
Its platform combines geospatial data, climate models and treatment recommendations to identify areas facing significant wildfire risk and prioritize forest-management actions.
The technology allows users to evaluate different treatment scenarios, coordinate activities across property boundaries and direct resources toward interventions intended to improve landscape resilience.
Convective Capital is a venture fund dedicated to wildfire resilience and climate-adaptation technologies.
Its portfolio includes companies working across wildfire prevention, early detection, vegetation management, grid resilience, emergency response, risk modeling and community protection.
The Arbor Day Foundation created its Impact Fund to back companies and investment funds developing technologies and approaches related to forest health, resilience and restoration.
The organization plans to continue targeting areas including land-use management, climate and Earth data, forest carbon technologies and other tree-related technologies.
KEY QUOTES:
“Wildfires in the U.S. and around the world are burning longer, hotter, and more often than in the past. Fire seasons that were once measured in months now stretch into a year-round threat across much of the West. We have spent decades replanting in communities and forestlands in the aftermath of some of the nation’s most devastating wildfires and we’re elevating that recovery work by supporting solutions that could help limit future wildfires.
We will always show up to help forests and communities recover after a wildfire to bring a sense of hope and healing to people and the planet. But recovery can only do so much if the fires keep getting bigger. As a leader in this space, we feel a responsibility to help shape better outcomes, and that means investing in the data, technology, and expertise of organizations that are building the future solutions this crisis demands.”
Dan Lambe, CEO of the Arbor Day Foundation
