Nuveen hires AGRI3 exec for natural capital role

Nuveen Natural Capital has hired Nick Moss, a London-based executive with experience in sustainability and fund management, as head of nature-based solutions.

Moss will focus on an investment strategy that includes farmland, forestry and ecological restoration. He will report to global head of asset management Skye Macpherson in a role that also includes responsibility for reducing emissions and environmental footprint of commercial production processes and implementing steps to protect and restore existing or damaged animal habitats.

In a statement, Macpherson highlighted Moss’s strong network among businesses, donors, governments and developmental finance institutions.

“He will play a pivotal role in continuing to grow our natural capital and nature-based solutions offering, and providing the technical expertise to manage our holdings efficiently, sustainably and to the highest standards,” she said.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Moss joins Nuveen after more than four years as managing director for the AGRI3 Fund, a joint effort between Rabobank, the UN Environment Program and technical assistance provider IDH to mobilize $1 billion in commercial finance to support sustainable land use in middle- and low-income countries.

The profile also shows Moss served as investment director at Mirova for two years until March 2022 and previously held sustainability-related positions with London-headquartered advisory Adam Smith International, PwC and others.

In July, Nuveen Natural Capital added its Nuveen Global Farmland strategy to the iCapital wealth advisory platform. In March, the unit sold more than 11,000 timberland acres to the non-profit The Conservation Fund as part of a transaction that will result in some of the Oklahoma acres being preserved as state forest.

In the Agri Investor Timberland report, Nuveen Natural Capital’s Gwen Busby described the climate benefits related to increasing use of mass timber in construction as among the key factors bringing climate conscious investors into the timberland market. She wrote that a methodology for mass timber construction is coming soon and will provide an important mechanism for verifying carbon savings through the construction method that could produce carbon credits.

“Mass timber actually compliments sustainable forestry because well-managed forests sequester carbon while the trees are growing and then mass timber provides a way of storing carbon in the built environment,” Busby wrote. “Unlike carbon stored in forests – where this is a risk that carbon could be released through things like wildfires, illegal logging, or disease outbreaks – risks to long-term carbon storage in buildings is relatively limited.”