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Coastal EcoVentures is a social enterprise that grew out of a Master’s thesis completed by a five graduate students at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The team conducted extensive research on issues related to responsible property investment, coastal development in emerging markets, and how to influence investor decision-making to support environmentally and socially responsible projects. We developed a scorecard, the EcoValuator, that provides comprehensive and clear information on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance factors to be used by investors to identify and to invest in responsible projects.


For more information on the Group Project process and deliverables, please click here.

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News:


4/28/09 - Members of the Coastal EcoVentures team returned this week from its first round of face-to-face meetings with international development banks and the UN Foundation in Washington, DC. We were very encouraged by the feedback we received regarding the unmet need for a tool such as the EcoValuator that supports decision making related to tourism development, especially for small and medium enterprises. We are currently enhancing the scope of influence of our tool to include regional and climate considerations.


Working alongside the UN Foundation and United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Coastal EcoVentures continues to collaborate with the GSTC technical review board in their development of internationally-recognized sustainable tourism standards, and intends to join the Sustainable Investment and Financing Tourism (SIFT) network when it launches at the end of this year.

Background

To bring the EcoValuator to market, we are creating a social enterprise called Coastal EcoVentures to be incorporated in June 2009. We will use the Scorecard as the basis for consulting to investment organizations in order to assist their selection and monitoring of responsible tourism projects. The EcoValuator can also be used by developers to improve their performance and to qualify for low-cost financing from select capital sources. Our long-term goal is to act as a financial intermediary for responsible tourism in areas that are currently unrepresented, namely small- and medium-sized enterprises. That is, we will be an on-the-ground presence with an independent investment committee that raises and manages funding for responsible projects to broaden the reach of our financing partners.


Unlike other highly dispersed social funds, Coastal EcoVentures will focus on one location at a time to enhance community relationships and to make the most of promising opportunities. By building relationships with local developers, community members and government officials, we will help ensure positive long-term, community-wide development impacts.

Organization