Jessica Smith heads the nature programme at the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative (UNEP FI) in Geneva. Here she works with banks, insurers, and investors to shift capital and embed nature-positive approaches into mainstream financial practice. Under her leadership, UNEP FI has played a central role in engaging the financial system in shaping and implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, and she continues to steer efforts to define, track and scale “Finance for Nature Positive”. Jessica played a key role in the origination of the Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD), setting worldwide norms for how nature risk and opportunity are measured, managed, and disclosed. Her work has emphasised integrity, equity, and inclusion — ensuring that nature markets and finance help to affirm Indigenous rights and support front-line communities.
She has recently taken an additional mandate at UNEP FI to scope how the organisation as a whole can better engage with academic research in order to improve the practice of sustainable finance.
Jessica is a Fellow of the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership and a research partner in a University of Oxford-led and European Space Agency-funded project leveraging earth observation for nature finance. She is a frequent advisor and speaker on sustainable finance, serving on several international advisory boards. These include the Bank of England’s Technical and Academic Advisory Panel for climate risk, Deutsche Bank’s Nature Advisory Panel, the Blue Bond Accelerator, and the Capitals Coalition A-Track initiative.
She is passionate about encouraging the next generation of leaders in nature finance and regularly guest lectures at leading universities. Jessica is aiming to advance the theory of nature finance as well as its practice, and was lead author of the first peer reviewed article linking blended finance and de-risking instruments with the context of community-led conservation. Jessica holds degrees in environmental studies, business, international development, and finance. She is currently completing a PhD in development finance at the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business.
Before joining UNEP FI, Jessica ran a consultancy for seven years, on behalf of whom she also held mandates with the private sector to drive voluntary action on biodiversity and to improve environmental and social risk management in high-impact sectors such as oil & gas, infrastructure and mining. She has extensively focused on developing and evaluating environmental finance projects and portfolios, working in dozens of countries and across all regions of Africa. Earlier in her career, she worked in field-based and technical roles for top conservation and development organisations such as UNEP-WCMC, UNDP, and IUCN.
