Greenleaf Advisors Story

Greenleaf Advisors® is a privately owned services firm that helps corporations, governments and institutions achieve their goals where sustainable solutions to the use of land, water, material, or energy is a primary objective.  We engage at the intersection of capital, business, science and policy to serve enterprises and communities striving to address the sustainable use of Earth’s natural resources.

Greenleaf Advisors was founded in 2002 to build bridges across sectors and between disciplines to advance economic and environmentally sustainable solutions for public health. Our clients are committed to building their enterprises based upon contributions to the sustainable use of resources. We continue to grow through the delivery of services and development of relationships that advance a healthy and sustainable world.

Our first assignment was to help one of the world’s largest real estate companies, Jones Lang LaSalle, serve its clients with sustainable real estate development solutions. Subsequent experience with The Nature Conservancy and its many partners advanced the protection of the largest freshwater watershed on earth, The Great Lakes – this involved addressing five of the top six threats to freshwater biodiversity, including climate change, pollution, invasive species, habitat destruction, and altered hydrology.

Our work has always been grounded in the advancement of sound science and collaboration to inform community practices and policies.  With a growing appreciation for the similarities between ecological and human health, and the need for business practices to be at the heart of each, we positioned the firm in 2009 to more fully integrate and bridge across the scientific, policy, and business communities to develop integrated, sustainable solutions that benefit all stakeholders.

Presently, Greenleaf Advisors works in North America’s Midwest and Mid-Atlantic regions to help energy and material reuse companies secure clients and expand markets, as well as attain supportive national and state policies by bringing leading science to the community and government engagement.  We advise state and regional governments on the protection of water resources by bringing technical advice, strategic and tactical planning, and stakeholder engagement to the process.  Our university and research clients and partners inform agricultural practices best practices to protect soil and water resources with our project management, facilitation, and communication/outreach support.  We enjoy bringing parties together to shine their bright lights on matters of great importance for achieving beneficial and sustainable results for all.  We invite interested parties to contact and contribute to that growing beam of sustainable light.

In 2011, we established Greenleaf Communities as a nonprofit 501(c)(3) ‘sister’ organization to ‘advance a healthy and sustainable world’ specifically through the advancement of applying research intelligence to inform changed policies and practices that reduce environmentally-mediated causes of disease.  We recognize that environmental impacts on water and food security, together with events related to climate change, are likely to influence population movements and exacerbate disease, adversely affecting human health. Greenleaf Communities addresses this challenge by recruiting and organizing multidisciplinary teams of scientists, technologists and community leaders to work together across their areas of expertise for the advancement of changed practices that eliminate toxic exposure from food, water, air and urban environments.  We invite new participants and support to this growing community of intelligence committed to preventing unnecessary human illness.