Abby Snyder
Meet Abby, an environmentalist at heart who has dedicated her entire academic and professional career to climate mitigation. As our Senior Climate Advisor, Abby interfaces with clients to pilot Value Chain (or Scope 3) interventions. Solutions that can drive massive change within the next decade and continually uphold scientific integrity are what Abby is all about in her work.
Before joining SustainCERT, Abby led the development of agroforestry systems in West Africa and authored Greenhouse Gas Protocol guidance for the dairy sector. She thrives when challenged to co-develop market-based solutions to complex climate problems and has a knack for sharing the best GIFs in our All Team Calls. Abby is based in Washington D.C., and, when not at work, she is usually exploring the outdoors. Be it summiting an active volcano in Martinique or biking 200 miles on backwoods trails in the Appalachian Mountains.
But let’s get to know her better by reading her own words.
Why does bringing credibility to climate action matter to you?
The goal is to ensure that we- the global community- inhabit a liveable planet by transitioning to net zero. This is one of the greatest challenges humankind has faced and meeting that challenge requires the assurance that our net zero commitments are backed by credible, verified, and scientifically rigorous reduction and removal actions. In my opinion, credibility is the cornerstone of a just transition to net zero.
What do you like to do outside work?
I am incredibly passionate about biculturalism and strategies to preserve traditional knowledge systems and the local biodiversity that underpins these systems. I am currently developing an ethnobotanical agroforestry system project as a member of the Yale School of the Environment Tropical Forest Landscapes Program. Also, there is nothing I love more than immersing myself in the solitude of nature. I enjoy hiking, camping, exploring, birding, and sometimes just sitting in the natural world.
What’s the most interesting thing you’ve ever done or seen before?
On an ecology trip in graduate school, we visited a research centre in Yasuni National Park, located in Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest. While travelling on a canoe we saw a jaguar and her cub crossing the river and then jumping to the bank. The experience was nothing beyond magical and underpins why this work is so incredibly important and why, among other breath-taking human and non-human moments, I’ve dedicated my life to climate action.
Would you rather have a pause or a rewind button in your life? Why?
Neither as my life seems to be unfolding exactly as it intends to.