Kathy Abusow

Under Kathy’s leadership, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc. (SFI) has seen forest land certified to the SFI Standard grow to cover more than 250 million acres of North American forests —nearly one-and-half times the size of Texas. She also led the establishment of the SFI Conservation and Community Partnership Grants program. It has awarded more than 60 grants totaling nearly $2 million to fund research and pilot programs to better inform future decisions about forests, contributions from partner organizations bring the investment to more than $7 million.

In 2012, Kathy spearheaded the launch of the SFI Forest Partners Program, along with founding partners Time Inc., National Geographic Society, Macmillan and support from Pearson. The program is increasing the level of forest certification to address the growing demand from corporations seeking low-risk, certified forest products in their supply chains.

Kathy has led and moderated discussions at Fortune Brainstorm Green on themes related to supply chain management and the new economics of land. She has also spoken at RISI’s North American Forest Products Conference on Evaluating the Business Case for Sustainable Practices. She also spoke at The Economist’s World Forest Summit in Stockholm on a panel that addressed illegal logging and timber regulations, as well at as the World Business Council on Sustainable Development's Forest Solutions Working Group.

Kathy earned an undergraduate degree from McGill University and an MA from Harvard University with a concentration in sustainable development of natural resources.