For decades we’ve been taught to reduce our use of wood-related products, but what if it could be better to consume more? Because trees capture and store greenhouse gases, forests are the most powerful natural lever we have to mitigate climate change. Rather than simply plant more, what if groups like The Nature Conservancy also worked to increase demand for sustainable forest products? More demand would make replanting trees more profitable, creating a permanent support for sustainable reforestation. Bain conducted research into the construction industry in the US and packaging markets globally to understand how construction timber and other wood products could be used at scale, replacing other materials that have a much harsher environmental impact. Some regional chapters of TNC have now begun to explore collaborations based on this research.

Often, land conservation organizations buy a tract of land and rely on donations to cover the cost. However, TNC in Georgia needed to partly fund its recent purchase of 11,000 coastal acres—including a longleaf pine savanna providing habitat for the gopher tortoise— by selling a portion of the land, once under a conservation easement, to a private buyer. To help maximize revenue from the sale, Bain interviewed experts, surveyed customers and modeled various scenarios to create an assessment of the market potential and an interim property management approach. Deron Davis, executive director of TNC in Georgia, says the resulting approach “is playing a very important role in helping assure that a crown jewel on the Georgia coast is permanently protected.”

Over the last decade, impact investment vehicles that seek to achieve a “double bottom line” of both financial return and social impact have grown dramatically. A few years ago, Bain worked with TNC to design ways to use private capital to fund critical conservation work. A Bain team helped research the investment market for sustainably managed real assets and then designed a North American Forestry Impact Fund for TNC’s impact investing unit, NatureVest. This has informed the team’s strategic approach to fund design as they develop products in other sectors, including water conservation and sustainable agriculture.

Over a quarter of the global tuna catch takes place in the waters of eight Pacific Island nations, and they rely heavily on their tuna fisheries both for food and economic security. Today, these countries’ earnings primarily come from access fees charged to foreign fishing fleets that operate in their waters. Bain works with TNC and these Pacific Island nations to diversify and increase the financial benefit derived from their tuna resources, and to in turn support sustainable tuna management. By creating commercialization opportunities within the region, Pacific Island countries can act as commercial partners and not just rent-seekers. This model has the potential to deliver financial, social and environmental gains to these nations by increasing their commercial participation in the global tuna supply chain.

Bain helped TNC develop its strategy to reduce deforestation from beef production in the Amazon and Cerrado regions of Brazil. Bain started by conducting a thorough analysis of the industry structure and key drivers of business value of the Brazilian slaughterhouses that buy most of the cattle in these regions. Next, our team developed innovative techniques to analyze the flow of cattle from deforested properties to better understand how these cattle can be tracked and their usage blocked. Finally, we identified opportunities for slaughterhouses to increase their bottom line while adopting a deforestation-free business model.

In 2018, ahead of the G20 meeting in Buenos Aires, business leaders from member countries (the B20) engaged Bain’s help to develop a policy paper on sustainable food systems. With input from more than 90 organizations, this paper included concrete recommendations, business commitments and case studies on five focus areas: eradicating malnutrition, undernourishment and obesity; ensuring environmental conservation and mitigating and adapting to climate change; fostering technology development and adoption; minimizing food loss and waste; and reducing barriers to global food trade.

According to the World Economic Forum, if not addressed, plastics in the ocean will outweigh fish pound for pound in 2050. The Alliance to End Plastic Waste unites more than 30 major companies, including some of the largest oil and gas and chemicals, consumer packaged goods, and waste management companies, committing $1.5 billion over the next five years to eliminate plastic waste in the environment, especially in rivers and oceans. In addition to work on a strategy and operating model, Bain created a decision-making tool to evaluate plastic recycling technologies, solutions and their environmental impact based on three countries’ waste streams.