Meet The Team: Mark Campanale
- 18 hours ago
- 15 min read
Wednesday, 10th December 2025
By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos
When I met Mark Campanale, I was struck not only by his intelligence and clarity of thought, but by how approachable and warm he is. It quickly became clear why he is such an important part of our already strong team of advisors at Amazonia Impact Ventures (AIV). Our conversation began not with markets or climate treaties, but with something more candid: our shared Italian heritage.
My family roots lie in Basilicata, while Mark’s are in Puglia. Like so many from that generation, our ancestors spoke dialects rather than formal Italian, and that gave our exchange a shared cultural rhythm. His family’s story took them all over the world, mine to Brazil, yet both of us now carry forward that heritage with our own Italian children.
Even his surname carries meaning. Mark reflected on Campanale: which can be read as “bells” (evoking calling and resonance) or as “la campagna” (the ‘countryside’ or land, the people of the soil). That interpretation feels true to the kind of person he is: grounded, connected, and deeply committed to communities and the environment.
This interview captures that spirit. From his reflections on sustainable finance and Indigenous rights to his personal stories of family, Mark brings both intellect and humanity to the urgent questions of our time.
By Paula Perrelli dos Anjos
What does the Amazon mean to you personally? Have you had the chance to visit, or is there a story you’d like to share?
I’ve been to Brazil a couple of times, but I’ve never had the chance to visit the vast Amazonia. For a long time, though, I’ve been deeply interested in forests, tropical in particular. I began looking at the impact of business, especially commodities like beef and soy, and how they affect natural forests around the world. That was what first drew me into my interest in Amazonia. I became a trustee of the Rainforest Foundation UK, and through that, I became good friends with the team. That’s how I met Aldo.
In an odd way, something runs through your blood, your genes, your ancestry. My family is Italian, we owned fields around our village in Puglia, each with their own name, such as ‘Madonna della Scala’ and ‘Le Mal di Testa’ (headache!). For hundreds of years, we have grown olive and almond trees. My grandfather tended the olive groves, and as a boy, I would go to collect olives with my father and crack open almonds, my nonno’s cash crop for the year. My nonno was also a share-cropper, working on other people’s land in return for a share of the crops. This interest in nature, in looking after trees, seems to run through my blood. Forty years ago, I went to college to study Agricultural Economics, specialising in Tropical Agriculture, to maintain that family connection to the land.
The image of you gathering olives and cracking almonds with your family reminds me of non-timber forest products (NTFPs), which we work with a lot at AIV. Do you see that connection?
Oh yes, absolutely. With my two brothers… I don’t know how old we were, maybe seven or eight, we’d be given a pile of almonds, a little hammer and a rock, and told to break open the shells that had been drying on the roofs of my grandfather’s house. The almonds would then be sold or eaten.
Just to think that for generations my family made their living from these tree crops — much like communities in the Amazon who depend on forest products — really brings home that connection.
What drew you to support AIV as an advisor, and how did that story unfold?
When I left Agricultural college, I worked on projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and became involved in commodity trading, working for a company called the African Coffee Company for the Schluter family. They launched what you might call the first fair‑trade coffee. After that, I came back to London in 1989 and worked in the City as an investment analyst, supporting the Jupiter Ecology Fund. It was one of the first small funds investing in sustainability companies. That fund began at £10 million; today it’s closer to a billion and still running, 35 years on.
From those early days in fair‑trade coffee with the Schluters, I became friends with people at Twin Trading, which focused on fair‑trade commodities. So trade, finance, sustainable and equitable exchange became central to my career, and remain important to me.
I thought it was hugely significant when Aldo’s project came up at the Rainforest Foundation. It was about keeping people close to the land: Indigenous and First Nations communities protecting the territories that had always been theirs, maintaining traditional livelihoods while interacting appropriately with the global economy. Producing something the world needs, enabling them to persist with their way of life, while also bringing benefits into the economy — that resonated deeply with me. Alongside other projects, such as mapping land rights, Aldo’s work stood out as one of the most important being done at the Foundation. That eventually became the seed for AIV.
Later in my career, I moved from trading and public markets into private markets, joining a US philanthropy called Halloran Philanthropies, and I became very active in the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN). So, I had this professional interest that allowed me to bring together my passion for nature, conservation and forest peoples with my expertise in investing. And when Pajani asked me to become more involved and join the advisory board, I was delighted. It gave me the chance to bring in some of my investor network to meet the team.
What excites you most about the AIV approach?
When you produce a crop, you have to trade it. You want to know there are buyers, that there’s a market to sell into, and you want to be able to plan — like anybody — for the future: schooling, health care, those everyday needs. The whole idea of long-term sustainable livelihoods, while protecting the integrity of forests and forest communities, is what interests me.
My father grew up in southern Italy and didn’t see the sea until he was 12, even though it was only 70 kilometres away, because he had never gone far from the village. The village was the centre of life, and people rarely left. In modern times, I think losing that connection with the land means losing a part of yourself. Even though I’m British, and as much a Londoner as anyone else, I still go back once a year to my family village in southern Italy — to join “the festa”, a religious feast, to meet relatives. Everyone tries to return once a year; it’s an important time. Now I go back with my sons, my daughter and their partners, and it’s part of our heritage.
Keeping communities together is not just about business. It’s about who we are as people: living in communities, in extended families. It’s part of human health and social well-being. To me, the work of Amazonia Impact Ventures is as much about social cohesion and mental health as it is about sustainable livelihoods and ensuring cash flows into the economy where it’s needed.
Looking ahead, what opportunities do you think AIV could seize for the future?
Maximising the local benefit seems to me the most important thing. It’s not only about the crops, but about finding ways for more of the value to remain connected to the community — so that people benefit from their ancestral rights over land and over the trees that produce those crops.
People’s choices are sometimes restricted. My own family left southern Italy; some families moved to Argentina, some to Australia or America. My father and his brother moved to London after the war to work with other Italians. The reason they left was simple: they couldn’t make a living from what they were doing.
Sometimes you have to make difficult choices. The point of sustainable livelihoods is to give people more choices, and to ensure funds flow into households and communities so they can make carefully considered, often collective decisions about what they want — whether that’s better access, an energy system, improved healthcare, or education.
It’s about giving people choices that previous generations had to sacrifice. My family, like many others, gave up staying with their community in order to go away and improve their livelihoods. That’s why the role of Indigenous peoples in protecting forests is so important. We have to do everything we can to ensure those communities remain intact and in place, protecting the forests and creating a different way of living, compared to the somewhat ghastly existence those of us in cities often face.
In your view, what makes Amazonia’s work stand out compared to other impact investment initiatives you’ve seen recently?
It’s the revolving loan, the recyclable loans model. Giving people the cash when they need it, which can then be recovered as a loan, allows them to trade in the commodities they produce. That, I think, is a real plus. Alongside that, the business support Amazonia Impact Ventures provides is key. It offers an appropriate window through which to look at the rest of the world: a friendly hand to support communities globally. That’s what feels distinctive.
Other investors take different approaches. Some funds invest in advance purchases of particular tree crops, while others co-own the benefits from projects. This is simply a different model. To me, AIV’s credit strategy, providing loans that are appropriate and timely, seems to be the right way forward.
The question is how we could be doing this on the biggest scale. Given the size of Amazonia — not just in Peru but across neighbouring regions — these are places where, as AIV’s work is recognised and expands, it could move into other parts of Latin America.
What advice would you give to investors considering AIV?
It comes down to impact first. For some people, you know, if you’ve got a small amount of money in the bank, the interest you get is less than a fraction of a per cent. You don’t really change how you use your bank because of the interest. I have a bank account at a social Triodos Bank, and I think investors should see this in the same way: as impact first.
I don’t want to use the word secure — because no investing or lending is truly secure — but I see this as a way to have impact. It gets to the heart of how communities need to function, particularly by supporting their business activities with clear, measurable outcomes. You’re putting your capital to work in a particular way, and in return, you get social returns as well as getting your money back.
It’s not the same as investing in the stock market. It’s not the same as investing in a private credit fund. Nor would you want it to be. It’s about having confidence in the team — the team locally working with Indigenous peoples, and the Indigenous peoples themselves — alongside the Amazonia Impact Ventures team. Doing this professionally and transparently means investors can see where the money is going, how it’s being used, the track record of repayments, and have visibility on that.
Those are the important things an investor wants to see: Can you trust the team? Is it transparent? Can you see the impact? Am I going to get my money back? And I think people will be delighted by the social impact.
How do you see the role of finance in shaping markets, and how can think tanks like Carbon Tracker influence mainstream capital investing?
Why would somebody like me, with a background in food systems, agriculture and the environment, be interested in finance? Well, apart from the fact that that’s where the money is, it’s also where power and influence lie. If you want to change the world, if you want to change capitalism, first you have to take control of the capital. Once you have access to capital, you can begin to change the world around you.
I’ve seen this in many ways. My own work is broadly in two places. A small part of my time is with Consilium Capital, working with impact investors and funds to scale the space and change how capital is used, very much in line with what Amazonia Impact Ventures does.
Most of my time is spent with two think tanks I helped set up. One is Planet Tracker, which looks at biodiversity and nature through the lens of financial markets. The other nonprofit is Carbon Tracker, which analyses global coal and gas production and how much needs to decline to stay well below two degrees. That’s my day-to-day work, and it shapes my views on markets and the world. I recently did a podcast on Thinking the Unthinkable about the end of the fossil fuel system, which captures much of this shift.
You mentioned the end of the fossil fuel system in this podcast I watched, too. Can you share with us your vision for the future?
That conversation is about the end of the fossil fuel system, money flowing into renewables, and banks withdrawing from fossil fuels. One of the big supporters of Carbon Tracker’s work has been the Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF)— a family historically behind the oil industry, yet now among the keenest supporters of our work and the divestment movement. They’ve helped drive pension funds out of fossil fuels.
But it’s not enough to simply say: stop doing that. You need a clear vision of what comes next. We need more regenerative farming, more sustainable management of land resources, oceans and water. And we need to build a carbon‑free energy system that benefits people and communities.
At heart, I want to see a world that is healing itself — nature healing itself — with people and communities living, thriving, flourishing sustainably. That means a new way of trading, a new way of investing, a new way of building a “common future for all”. If I can borrow a few words from Pope Francis in the Laudato Si’, what has been an inspiration for me.
What do you see as the biggest barriers to aligning markets with environmental limits?
The biggest one is that we don’t value biodiversity and ecosystems. We don’t value standing natural forests, because financial markets only put a price on something they can trade, sell, or own. A forest is only considered “worth” something once you cut down a tree and sell it for timber or some other use — and that seems daft to me.
In reality, a forest has extraordinary value: for the water it regulates, the biodiversity it sustains, the canopy cover it provides, the crops it supports, and the carbon stored in its soils and trees. There is so much value that the market simply ignores.
What we need is to move to a system that truly values nature in all these dimensions.
How can we create markets for the different pieces of this ecological puzzle?
I don’t want people to think we should create a market for everything. But we do have to recognise the intrinsic, embedded value of what nature has given us. And keep a stock of that value. So when somebody tries to destroy it, we can say: “You’re not making money here, you’re losing money”. That requires a whole new mindset.
Globally, financial markets are chasing higher and higher returns. I’m a big fan of localisation, as you may have guessed. The stock markets that everyone know in the UK is the London Stock Exchange. But 50-60 years ago, major cities (Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester) had their own stock exchange for local companies. Money made locally was recycled locally. If an entrepreneur had a business idea, they could get a loan from a local bank, raise money on the local stock market from local investors, and the business would stay local. My word was my bond, and trade was transacted that way.
Today, we live in a hyper‑connected world, constantly aware of what’s happening on the other side of the globe, trading internationally. Can we reverse that? No. But we can live in a parallel world: investing internationally, while also investing locally. I’m a fan of small initiatives that build local connection.
That’s how I want to see finance change — the way it works and the way it thinks. Before I set up Carbon Tracker 15 years ago, I created something called the Social Stock Exchange, which was built on exactly that principle.
We’re talking about urgencies, and we don’t have loads of time before all is lost. What could accelerate sustainability so that by 2030, we’re in a better place?
That’s a tough question. The biggest priority has to be rapidly moving people away from burning fossil fuels and creating a sustainable energy system based on renewables. I think we need to tackle this head-on. I’ve been a supporter and founding member of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. Eighteen governments have already agreed to sit down and begin negotiations to give up their oil and gas prospecting rights. We need to get oil and gas prospecting out of the Amazon completely. The first country to host a meeting of fossil fuel producers and nations willing to give up production rights will be Colombia, in April 2026. That’s such an important step.
At the micro level, and thinking again about AIV, my favourite project at the Rainforest Foundation UK was “Mapping For Rights” (see https://www.mappingforrights.org/ ), which maps Indigenous peoples’ traditional ancestral lands. Less than 1–2% of the world’s traditional land has been mapped. The first thing we need to do is give communities legal protection rights. Particularly, land that has been under communal use for thousands of years. Mapping is crucial so people can clearly say: this land has been under continuous use by us, and it must be protected and recognised in the courts. Without legal title, governments can come in and grant logging rights or carbon trading rights, often exploiting information asymmetry. Outsiders know the value of carbon stored in forests and soils, while traditional owners are left out.
When it comes to commodities and trade, we also need international agreements to protect genetic intellectual property. The pharmaceutical industry is worth trillions globally, and many of its compounds are found in nature, often in forest lands like the Amazon. There are genetic sequencing, plant-based knowledge, and traditional uses of roots, leaves, fibres, and barks with healing properties. This is the intellectual property of First Nations, and we need treaties that value and protect those rights.
Too often, traditional people don’t receive this value. Think of Coca-Cola or Google: most of their worth lies in brand and intellectual property. In the same way, the future value of the Amazon lies in the knowledge embedded in its plants, animals, and insects. We need to ensure that value flows back to its traditional owners, not taken away by corporations.
Instant Insights
When you’re not at work, what do you like doing to recharge?
I confess I actually like working. But I also enjoy going for long walks — whether through cities, exploring my own London, or out in nature whenever I can. I like being with my family, my kids, and my wife.
I enjoy simple things: watching films, especially action or detective movies, sitting back and getting absorbed in a story. That helps me switch off. I love reading, I read a lot, and I always listen to music.
That takes me to my next question, which is what kind of music do you enjoy?
My tastes are quite esoteric. If it was released between 1967 and 1973, I’m probably going to like it; outside those years, probably not. I think 1971 was the most important creative year for music across the board, and most of my favourite tracks go back to that period.
What book, podcast or thinker has recently inspired you?
I like Assaad Razzouk’s Angry Clean Energy Guy. I follow the work of Michael Liebreich, the energy economist, and Kingsmill Bond on the energy transition. They help me understand the new world we’re building.
In England, I listen a lot to Radio 4’s Today programme, which is very topical and keeps me connected to what’s happening in the news. Outside of that, I like to stay engaged with different perspectives, and I always read the Financial Times.
What do you think everyone should try at least once in their lifetime?
Oh gosh. I’d say everyone should try meditating — just a little bit. For me, it’s more in a Catholic kind of way, not in a Buddhist way. Anyone can sit quietly and reflect. I’m not one of those people who says you have to clear your mind to relax. I don’t do that. My mind is full of noise, but even so, taking time to sit quietly and reflect is worthwhile.
Do you remember anyone who has been a mentor on your journey, and what did you learn from them?
I’ve had mentors throughout my life. Probably the most important in a professional business context was a woman called Tessa Tennant, who is sadly no longer with us. I went to work with Tessa in the late 1980s. She was so full of energy, ideas and insights, and she was a great communicator and convenor. For her, it was about the beauty of ideas: if you’ve got an idea, explore it; if you want to create something, create it; experiment, make mistakes. She was a great mentor for me and very patient.
I’m sure I can be quite an annoying person — at least the people I love most tell me that. Tessa had great patience. I loved working with her because she was always laughing. We were always messing about, being late for planes and trains, challenging people, standing up at events and saying things others were afraid to say. In the world of business and finance, that’s what she taught me: say the things that need to be said. Be a little bit annoying, call people out, challenge people. Don’t be ordinary. Don’t be normal. I loved her for that. She sadly passed at a very young age, but she still comes to me in dreams. She was wonderful.
And then at a personal level, the person I love, of course, my wife — who I’ve been with for 40 years — has been a close friend and ally. She is a trustee of one of London’s largest homelessness charities and also a trustee of our village farmers' market, where we live. She has also been very active politically. Would you call your partner “mentorship”? Probably. She’s helped round me off as a person. Her name is Charlotta, shortened to Lotte. We grew up together, and we’re looking forward to growing old together.
Any trip you’ve done with Lotte that’s been especially memorable?
She’d probably say one wasn’t very memorable, because she didn’t enjoy it very much! We walked Hadrian’s Wall as a family during COVID. Hadrian’s Wall was built by the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago, and you can still walk alongside it. It stretches across Northumberland, which is almost empty countryside in the UK. We would walk for hours, hardly seeing anyone, surrounded by beautiful countryside. It was tranquil, relaxing, and a chance to talk and be with family. Our family enjoyed that trip together.
We also spent some time in Australia as a family when I was working there. It wasn’t long enough (less than a year), but it was great, and we really enjoyed that time together.
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