An awakening is underway, to the values of nature and the risks and devastating costs of its loss. Stanford Professor Gretchen Daily will describe new science to quantify nature’s benefits to people and integrate them into decision-making – in planning, policy, finance, and practice. Gretchen will relate the arc of advances in science, in understanding nature’s contributions to a range of benefits from crop pollination and coastal climate resilience to mental health in cities. Through stories, she’ll describe the innovation in actionable tools, engagement, and demonstrations, and a strategy for scaling models of success across diverse cultures, sectors, countries, and global institutions. She will focus especially on China and Latin America, places that stand out today for innovation at scale, illuminating pathways toward green, inclusive development.

Gretchen Daily is Bing Professor of Environmental Science and co-founder and faculty director of the Natural Capital Project at Stanford University. Her work focuses on understanding the dynamics of change in the biosphere, their implications for human well-being, and the deep societal transformations needed to secure people and nature. She engages extensively with governments, multilateral development banks, businesses, communities, and NGOs. Daily co-founded the Natural Capital Project (www.naturalcapitalproject.org), a global partnership that is integrating the values of nature into policy, finance and practice globally. Its tools and approaches are now used in 185 nations through the free and open-source Natural Capital Data & Software Platform. Daily has published several hundred scientific and popular articles, and a dozen books, including Green Growth that Works: Natural Capital Policy and Finance Mechanisms from Around the World (2019), One Tree (2018), and The Power of Trees (2012). Daily is a fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and has received international honors for her work.