EFM is pleased to announce that the innovative forestland investment management company established in 2004, is now 100% owned by the company’s management team– Managing Director Amrita Vatsal, co-founder and CEO Bettina von Hagen, and COO Chris Sweeney.  EFM has proudly become a majority women-owned and minority-owned business – one of the only real asset investment management companies in the U.S. with this status.  Both Ecotrust and EFM are celebrating the transition of the investment company that has been innovating in economic, social, and environmental impact for nearly two decades.

This change in ownership will position EFM to provide a broader set of natural climate solution investments, improve financial and regulatory compliance, meet its DEI goals, and create incentives for staff retention and alignment of interests.

With this announcement, we would also like to acknowledge and thank three long-standing members of the Board of Directors – John Earhart, Dr. John Gordon, and David Pollock – for their service on the Board and for their enduring commitment to the organization spanning over a decade. These members will now serve on a newly created Advisory Committee for the management company.  Spencer Beebe will continue as a member of the Funds’ Investment Committees and Bettina von Hagen, who has served on the Board since the company’s founding in 2004, will continue to chair the Board.  She will be joined by Amrita Vatsal and Chris Sweeney, who have been appointed to the Board of Directors.

EFM was co-founded in 2004 by Spencer Beebe and Bettina von Hagen under the auspices of non-profit Ecotrust to pioneer a climate-smart approach to managing commercial forests in the U.S. The guiding principle then – and now – is to manage forests for the full array of products and services – timber, carbon, habitat, water, rural jobs, tribal cultural values, recreation and scenic values – and monetize these for the benefit of investors and landscapes.  Since our inception, EFM has grown to ~$219M of assets under management and advisement and 130,000 acres of forestland under climate-smart management in the U.S.  In 2019, EFM expanded its geographic footprint to North and South America and started advising investors on the creation of investment portfolios that hedge climate risk while achieving Net-Zero climate goals.

Our Impact:

• 6 million tons of CO2 stored by EFM managed forestland, equivalent to the annual emissions from over 1.4 million cars
• 3,200 acres of forestland transitioned to Tribes to date
• 57,038 acres transitioned to permanent long-term owners, or with permanently protected land status
• 113,745 acres open to the public for non-motorized recreation & hunting
• 9,206 acres managed to improve drinking water for local communities
• 683 miles of streams protected with enhanced riparian buffers
• 48 species of mammal, fish, and amphibians supported by our management activities