How Richard H Lawrence Jr Is Helping to Promote Sustainability and Climate Justice

An Interview With Monica Sanders

Fighting for an improved planet requires leadership. We need to teach leadership skills and train folks about the importance and difficulties of being a true leader.

According to the University of Colorado, “Those who are most affected and have the fewest resources to adapt to climate change are also the least responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions — both globally and within the United States.” Promoting climate justice is an incredibly important environmental responsibility that is slowly becoming more and more recognized. In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to promote sustainability and climate justice. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Richard H. Lawrence, Jr.

Richard H. Lawrence, Jr. is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Overlook Investments Group, an independent fund management company established in 1991 which invests in a concentrated portfolio of public equities throughout Asia. Richard is also a director and co-founder of several non-profit organizations with a specific focus on climate change mitigation, including Proyecto Mirador Foundation, Cool Effect, and High Tide Foundation. Richard serves as Chairman of the non-profit Carbon Mapper and helped establish Global Methane Hub with over $225 million in philanthropic funds to support methane advocacy and mitigation.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about how you grew up?

I grew up in a loving household north of New York City. I had two brothers and we always had a bunch of dogs. Guess this was pretty normal for the 1960’s. After attending Brown University, I spent four years in South America, and nearly four years in New York before moving to Hong Kong in 1985.

Everyone has a cataclysmic moment or marker in their life which propels them to take certain actions, a “why”. What is your why?

In 2001, Honduras was devastated by Hurricane Mitch. Rivers and streams flooded like tsunamis, washing out 60% of the roads and bridges, destroying 70% of the crops, and killing more than 7,000 people. Homes were literally swept away, wind flattened what remained, and the airport in San Pedro Sula was buried in over twenty feet of water. This catastrophic destruction was especially hard on those who lived in more rural areas of the country, who were left isolated and running out of food and water while disease began running rampant. Volunteers were needed, and my daughter Skye and I signed up to help.

Upon our arrival in Honduras, it quickly became clear that the country wasn’t just dealing with an environmental crisis — they were dealing with an economic one as well. Some reports show that the hurricane destroyed nearly fifty years of economic progress in Honduras, and a quick look around the makeshift medical clinic where we began our work — eventually treating 1,500 people a day — reinforced that view.

A persistent cough was among the most common ailments we treated at the medical clinic, with women and children the most affected, and the cause was a mystery. After a visit to a local home, however, the mystery revealed itself. Cooking in rural Honduras is done on a traditional open-fire cookstove, typically consisting of an oil drum lid or simple steel cooktop placed over a circular adobe frame with a large opening through which fuelwood is fed. The stoves burn seven or eight hours daily, filling homes with soot and smoke while dumping carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

We understood the problem, and then we began the lengthy, complicated process of implementing a solution. What began with our (specifically, my daughter Skye’s) realization that “It’s the stoves!” led to a decades long journey of clean cookstoves, carbon credits, and climate action. A simple clean cookstoves project led to Cool Effect, a platform that helps support carbon projects (and not just cookstoves) around the globe, and a strong community of 500K+ members, including individuals, organizations, and businesses.

Most recently, I’ve authored a book titled “Carbon Done Correctly: A Model for Climate Mitigation from the Global South to Wall Street” which delves into how the carbon market — a financial mechanism for supporting countless projects like Mirador — can help us to both verifiably reduce carbon emissions and support the communities often most adversely affected by climate change in the Global South.

You are currently leading an organization that is making a difference for our planet. Can you tell us a bit about what you and your organization(s) are trying to change?

I’ve had the pleasure of co-founding several organizations with a specific focus on climate change, and the common thread that runs through them all is action. Every action can have an impact, and with something as existential and multifaceted as climate change, we need to focus on action-driven solutions that can match such a complex problem. Climate change doesn’t have a single solution — it has many, and we’re on the clock. We need to act, and we need to act now. We need to utilize every possible solution at our disposal as quickly as possible. A lot of my view was shaped by that first experience in Honduras, by seeing firsthand the real impact climate action can have. Climate action done correctly has the potential to not just make an impact for the planet, but for its people at the same time.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company or organization?

The most interesting and rewarding part of starting any organization is the opportunity to work alongside inspirational people. Inevitably, there are challenges that must be overcome and working with great leaders is always so satisfying to me. Leaders reach to overcome barriers in so many creative ways.

None of us can be successful without some help along the way. Did you have mentors or cheerleaders who helped you to succeed? Can you tell us a story about their influence?

Jeremy Grantham, the founder of The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment. He’s been an incredible mentor for me. I had the good fortune of being introduced to Jeremy by a mutual business client. We met several times and eventually developed a friendship over our shared interests: investing, China, and the challenges of stock picking. Upon grabbing lunch together during one of our visits, our conversation naturally shifted to the subject of climate change.

At this time, many people were still questioning and debating the realities of climate change. I remember he spoke with such urgency, alarm and concern. I found Jeremy’s passion, commitment and entrepreneurial perspective truly admirable and quickly realized that I had a lot to learn from him. He helped me understand that fighting climate change was an urgent moral imperative, and that’s definitely the reason I am where I am today.

Let’s now move to the central part of our discussion. Let’s start with a basic definition of terms so that everyone is on the same page. What does climate justice mean to you? How do we operationalize it?

Climate justice is a term that acknowledges that climate change doesn’t care about your age or gender, the color of your skin, or your tax bracket. Unfortunately, underprivileged and impoverished communities are statistically more impacted by climate change and its effects. By contributing to climate change, you are contributing to this issue.

We operationalize climate justice through carbon markets which offer a solution. Carbon markets give us an immediate way to mobilize billions of dollars of private capital into carbon-reducing projects in the Global South, where often marginalized communities are most heavily impacted by the adverse effect of climate change. Often from diverse walks of life, these people are already faced with adversity — whether it be poverty in their surrounding communities or limited access to healthy food and water. I want to see these communities flourish. It’s about so much more than just combating climate change.

Science is telling us that we have 7–10 years to make critical decisions about climate change. What are three things you or your organization are doing to help?

1. Raising awareness and educating upon the urgency of our climate crisis: we must collectively understand the severity of our climate crisis in order to mobilize action to address it, before we reach a point of no return.
2. Increasing integrity in the carbon market: carbon markets give us an immediate way to attack the urgent climate crisis, but for the carbon market to succeed and reach its true global potential, transparency must be at the heart of carbon projects. Transparency leads to trust, trust leads to scale, and with scale, the carbon market can become a financial asset class.
3. Channeling carbon finance to communities in the Global South: we’ve directed millions of dollars toward carbon projects around the globe, verifiably reducing emissions and providing much-needed benefits — like improving health and creating local jobs — to communities in need in the Global South, and we’re just getting started.

Are there three things the community, society, or politicians can do to help you in your mission?

1. Communities must be given straight information and then they will step up and help in every way they can to resolve the climate crisis.
2. Society needs to be educated and well-informed so society must invest in education. We see the failure of education as many in society feel it is easier to tear down, than build up.
3. Leaders in our societies often have conflicts of interest with projects and communities. Often the best thing they can do is to stay back and let individuals and communities do the work.

How would you articulate how a business can become more profitable by being more sustainable and more environmentally conscious? Can you share a story or example?

Citizens of all countries are well-aware of climate change today. As a result, they want sustainable products and services. An example of these changing attitudes is with packaging of products. As we move forward and people around the world suffer from impacts of climate change, they will begin to support only those companies whose products are verifiably sustainable.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started promoting sustainability and climate justice” and why?

1. You won’t always get it right. Accept now that you’re going to make mistakes along the way; it’s inevitable. We made plenty of mistakes building our cookstoves for Proyecto Mirador, and spent years improving and refining them. That trial and error, and dedication to success, is the reason it became the leading carbon mitigation project in Central America. Failure is just part of the journey.
2. You can use your critics as a source of motivation. Not everyone will believe or support what you are doing but remember that to have critics, you must be doing something right. Use their criticisms as a source of motivation to keep pushing forward.
3. Fighting for sustainability is not easy. We need thick skins and an ability to never look back, always march forward. This ability cannot be taught enough to the young people in our country and around the world. We face entrenched large business interests that wish to avoid change.
4. Fighting for an improved planet requires leadership. We need to teach leadership skills and train folks about the importance and difficulties of being a true leader.
5. We all need to remember to have some fun. Single people can only do so much, and we need to remind ourselves to take time out for being with friends.

Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. :-)

Jeremy Grantham, Founder of The Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment

How can our readers continue to follow your work online?

You can find me on LinkedIn or check out carbondonecorrectly.com.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

About the Interviewer: Monica Sanders JD, LL.M, is the founder of “The Undivide Project”, an organization dedicated to creating climate resilience in underserved communities using good tech and the power of the Internet. She holds faculty roles at the Georgetown University Law Center and the Tulane University Disaster Resilience Leadership Academy. Professor Sanders also serves on several UN agency working groups. As an attorney, Monica has held senior roles in all three branches of government, private industry, and nonprofits. In her previous life, she was a journalist for seven years and the recipient of several awards, including an Emmy. Now the New Orleans native spends her time in solidarity with and championing change for those on the frontlines of climate change and digital divestment. Learn more about how to join her at: www.theundivideproject.org