This summer, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to work with Natural Capital Investment Fund (now Partner Community Capital) through the Tadler Fellowship at UVA. Partner Community Capital is a community development financial institution (CDFI) focused on providing capital to underserved communities in rural Appalachia and North Carolina. My main project for the summer was to jump-start their process for reporting the carbon emissions of their investment portfolio according to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financial’s (PCAF) Standard.
I started off the carbon accounting process with little knowledge of the emerging field. I quickly learned, however, that the process is an extremely valuable one, as it aims to hold financial institutions accountable for their investments and to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Financial Institutions as large as Bank of America have committed to disclosing the financed emissions of their portfolio, so I was excited to be part of one of the first few CDFIs to commit to the same process. At the beginning of the summer, my supervisors, Rick Larson and Hannah Vargason, put me in contact with interns from two other CDFIs, Coastal Enterprises and Self-Help, who were completing the same project. We met weekly throughout the summer to align our processes and create a collaborative space for questions and concerns. In the end, I was able to complete almost all of the calculations for our portfolio, start to draft our disclosure document, and contribute to a “best practices” paper that the other interns and I put together to streamline the process for future CDFIs.
Throughout the summer, I was also able to fine-tune my Excel skills by helping Partner Community Capital clean up some of their data. Additionally, I was able to watch the rebranding process as Natural Capital Investment Fund became Partner Community Capital. The company worked with the marketing team from Hersick and Webster to launch a new website and brand presence. As someone with a love for design, watching this process was extremely exciting.
Ultimately, through my internship with Partner Community Capital, I was able to gain skills in Excel, learn about the carbon accounting sphere, and work with some very interesting and intelligent people. I am very grateful for all involved in this process and would recommend this experience to anyone interested in social entrepreneurship.