Mr Willem FERWERDA

CEO - Founder, Commonland

Ferwerda is CEO- founder of Commonland that develops scalable landscape restoration programs with business cases.  Between 2000-2012 he was director of IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands and set up Ecosystem Grants programs, policy working groups and a business network to address biodiversity. From 1995-2000 he led a tropical rainforest fund at IUCN NL. In 2013 he developed a holistic practical '4 Returns Framework' to scale up restoration. Ferwerda studied tropical ecology, specialized in transformative change related to ecosystems, agriculture and business. Others: Charles Darwin Foundation; #1 on Dutch 100 Sustainability list (2016); Dutch Sustainable Landscape Award (2019); theme lead Business & Ecosystems (IUCN CEM); fellow Rotterdam School of Management