Daniel Spitzer

Chairman and CEO
, Mountain Hazelnuts
Profile / Bio: 

Since 1993, Spitzer has developed ventures that combine financial objectives with social and environmental goals, including Plantation Timber Products (PTP), which he built into the People’s Republic of China’s largest sustainable forestry company. With 700,000 tree farmers and state-of-the-art processing facilities, PTP transformed the People’s Republic of China’s wood products industry and demonstrated the economic viability of green initiatives in a competitive marketplace. He also serves as Chairman of a waste water treatment company in the People’s Republic of China. Mountain Hazelnuts Group is a public-private-community partnership that is planting 10 million hazelnut trees on Bhutanese mountain slopes, providing long-term income to smallholder farmers. The trees will sequester an estimated 1.5 million tonnes of CO2-eq over the project life and remediate degraded ecosystems. ADB is an investor in Mountain Hazelnuts and arranged for technical assistance programs to support climate resilience and stakeholder communities. ADB named Mountain Hazelnuts as its 2015 “Corporate Finance/Project Finance Deal of the Year”.

Materials

Title Date Learning Materials Topic
Business Opportunities in Natural Capital 23 November 2016 Multimedia Environment, Finance, Private Sector
Mountain Hazelnuts and Natural Capital: Preserving Endangered Communities through Sustainable Agriculture 23 November 2016 Slides Agriculture and Natural Resources, Climate Change, Environment, Private Sector
Securing the Future of Green Business in Asia and the Pacific 22 November 2016 Multimedia Environment, Governance and Public Sector Management, Private Sector