As a multi-stakeholder coalition, C-AGG is the leading US organization creating capacity building across the agricultural value chain on the development and adoption of voluntary, market-based incentives to increase sustainability, provide ecosystem services, and reduce GHG emissions from the agricultural sector. C-AGG participants include over 215 organizations such as agricultural producers and producer groups, scientists, environmental NGO’s, carbon market developers, methodology experts, investors, and other proponents of voluntary agricultural GHG mitigation opportunities and benefits.
C-AGG Vision: Creating sustainable agriculture and climate change solutions for farmers, ranchers and society.
C-AGG Mission: C-AGG’s multi-stakeholder coalition builds sustainable agriculture and climate change mitigation capacity that accelerates change across organizations, sectors and regions. C-AGG works to create incentives and value for the agricultural sector to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and deliver ecosystem services at scale.
Staff and Board
Debbie Reed, Executive Director
Based in Washington, DC, Debbie manages and provides leadership and development for C-AGG activities and meetings. Her extensive policy expertise in agriculture, climate change and natural resources serve to guide and inform C-AGG’s work in the US and abroad. Debbie’s past positions in the US legislative and administrative branches and work in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) continue to support and inform C-AGG’s policy and program development and stakeholder engagement and outreach. Debbie was recently appointed as the Executive Director of the Ecosystem Services Market Consortium (ESMC), an effort she has been engaged in and supporting for the past 2 years. The ESMC is developing functioning, viable ecosystem service markets for US agriculture, joined by leading US and international NGO’s, companies, and experts from across the agricultural supply chain and value chain. Debbie currently serves on the Board of Directors of Field to Market: The Alliance for Sustainable Agriculture, and co-chairs their greenhouse gas metric and soil carbon metric sub-committees. She is also an Agriculture Technical Working Group expert for the Climate Bonds Initiative.
Debbie’s previous positions include serving in the White House Council on Environmental Quality as the Director of Legislative Affairs and Agricultural Policy; in the U.S. Senate, as a Senior Staff on natural resource and agricultural issues for U.S. Senator Robert Kerrey of Nebraska; and numerous leadership roles at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), including a special assistant to the Deputy Under Secretary for Research, Education and Economics (REE), and special assistant to the Administrator of the Agricultural Research Service (ARS). Her work at USDA included serving on multiple Bi-national Commissions on Agricultural Science and Technology; and as the USDA Executive Secretariat for the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Prior to that, Debbie worked for the Washington, DC Women, Infants, and Children’s (WIC) Supplemental Feeding Program; and for various non-profit organizations dedicated to promoting human nutrition research, policies and programs in support of human health. She has an MS in human nutrition and communications from Boston University. Debbie can be reached at [email protected].
Thayer Tomlinson, Project Manager
Thayer manages C-AGG’s project work, including communications through the newsletter and website, supports the planning, execution and follow-up associated with C-AGG meetings and workshops, and manages the USCA NWL Agriculture Toolkit project. She serves on the USCA NWL Impact Partners Secretariat as a co-lead to manage overall Impact Partner activities.
In addition to C-AGG, Thayer supports the EPA ENERGY STAR Congregations and Small Business program through technical outreach and energy/water benchmarking. For ten years, Thayer served as the Communications Director for the International Biochar Initiative. She was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Mongolia. Thayer has an MA in International Environmental Policy from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. . She lives in Vermont and can be reached at [email protected] and 802-257-5359.
Shiva Scotti, Administrative Director
At C-AGG, Shiva manages administrative and financial reporting duties of the organization. Shiva holds an MBA from The Ohio State University, where she majored in Marketing Management with a minor in International Business. She has worked for several Fortune 100 companies including Kimberly-Clark Corporation on the Kleenex Brand and Abbott Laboratories, as well as in Munich, Germany for a couple years in a leadership marketing role. She also has experience as the General Manager of a global nonprofit organization, which specialized in climate change mitigation and soil sustainability technologies.
Her experience spans an array of businesses and includes developing new products, determining brand positioning and media plans both in the US and abroad, growing relationships with professional sports leagues (i.e. NBA, NFL, NHL and endurance athletes) and sponsors, managing communication strategies internationally, and facilitating global education coursework & projects. Shiva also served as Executive Director of a leading certified data destruction company, where her efforts delivered higher overall technical efficiency of the business, as well as deeper and stronger client relationships. Shiva resides in Ohio with her husband and four children and can be reached at [email protected].
William Salas, Board Member
William Salas, Ph.D., is President and Chief Scientist at Applied GeoSolutions (AGS). Prior to forming AGS in 2000, Dr. Salas worked for 5 years at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and for 10 years at Complex Systems Research Center at the University of New Hampshire (UNH). Dr. Salas received his B.S. in Mathematics and Physics at University of Vermont and M.S. and Ph.D. in Natural Resources at University of New Hampshire. Salas’ expertise and interests include the use of remote sensing tools to model land use and land cover change, soil biogeochemical modeling, and GIS tools for environmental applications. Dr. Salas is an active member of many panels, including the Scientific Advisory Panel for the ALOS Kyoto and Carbon initiative under the auspices of the Japanese Space Agency NASDA. He has also served on the Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) High Resolution Design Team and co-authored the final design document on the role of high-resolution optical and radar systems for operational monitoring of global forests.