Stavros Koutsantonis never imagined that his investing career in the U.S. would leverage the knowledge he learned while working weekends on his grandfather’s farm in southern Greece. Koutsantonis, who grew up as a “city kid” in Athens, moved to the U.S. to pursue his education and build a career on Wall Street. But he never fully left behind the lessons of working his family’s grape vines and walnut trees.

“Agriculture is, in a manner of speaking, in my blood,” he said. “My father grew up on a farm in southern Greece that we have owned for generations, and I spent weekends and holidays visiting my grandparents there. But if you had told me 30 years ago that I was going to focus my career on agriculture, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

Over the past three decades, Koutsantonis has successfully combined his agricultural background with investment roles at some of the largest financial firms in the world. These included global asset manager Fidelity, hedge fund Millennium Partners, and private equity giant Brookfield. In his roles, he focused on “real asset” investing, covering areas such as water, infrastructure, renewable energy, and commodities.

Navigating the Intersection of Investing and the Environment

Since 2016, Koutsantonis has been a managing director and head of agricultural investing at Conservation Resources, a private equity firm, where he has also served as chief operating officer. Conservation Resources, which was founded in 2004 and headquartered in Exeter, NH, sits directly at the confluence of sustainability and investing. Over the past 20 years, the firm has raised over $1.4 billion in funds, marketing to institutions, family offices, and ultra-high-net-worth investors in the U.S. and around the world.

The firm’s investments, which cover both agriculture and timberland-focused strategies, have a dual mandate: to both generate returns for investors and to make a positive environmental impact. These types of strategies fit into the broader category of “impact investing,” which accounted for more than $1.5 trillion of assets as of late 2024, according to the Global Impact Investing Network.

Farmland as an asset class has grown significantly over the past decades, particularly for institutional investors such as endowments and foundations. Many of these investors seek out farmland as an alternative asset with the potential for steady returns over long time periods. In addition, farmland has shown little correlation to the performance of stocks and bonds, meaning that farms can still generate positive returns even in a bear market for traditional financial assets.

Transforming Farms, While Adding Both Economic and Environmental Value

While farmland has grown in importance for investors — and everyone needs to eat regardless of the economic situation — researchers have increasingly focused on the agriculture sector’s significant contributions to climate change. In fact, agriculture produces a vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs) globally, following only the energy sector (including transportation) as a contributor to GHGs.

Data from sustainability firm Climate Watch found that agriculture produces about 12% of global GHGs, primarily driven by methane produced as part of livestock digestion. According to nonprofit research firm Resources for the Future, other GHG sources from farming include nitrous oxide, which is mostly released due to fertilizer and manure usage; and carbon dioxide emissions, which arise from the decomposition of plant matter, although these emissions are partially offset by the increased plant matter stored in cropland soils.

“If you’re trying to reduce emissions and you’re not addressing agriculture, you’re kind of ignoring a big part of the solution,” Koutsantonis said. “If one believes that emissions need to come down, then agriculture is very clearly a part of the solution. But in order to do that, you have to change the way you treat and farm the land.”

Conservation Resources does just that by only investing in farms that meet strict criteria. This involves purchasing high-quality farms with the potential for adding even more value through sustainable management practices. Such practices improve the quality of the land while also supporting the needs of a productive farm that can generate healthy returns for investors.

“We’ve got an impact-focused approach that develops both the agricultural values as well as the environmental values and ultimately monetizes both of those,” Koutsantonis said. “We’re looking to buy a different type of farmland property that passes muster as an institutional-grade property that’s fully farmable and has good soil and water. But then there also has to be some sort of environmental aspect that we develop, realize, and ultimately monetize.”

To achieve their land-improvement goals, farms in the Conservation Resources portfolio practice either regenerative or organic farming techniques (or a combination of the two). This means that their farms do not use synthetic chemicals or fertilizers, and that in many cases farmers employ techniques such as planting cover crops and adding plant diversity to strengthen the soil and potentially make it more productive for future seasons. These approaches tend to lead to more productive farms, better returns for investors, and healthier land.

Battling the Scourge of Greenwashing

While Conservation Resources aims to combine an environmentally friendly approach while offering investors a solid return on their investment, Koutsantonis sees several major headwinds for broader sustainable investing, particularly as the category remains widely misunderstood by both the public and investors.

First, he points to the potential perils of “greenwashing” — the practice of companies or fund managers using misleading or deceitful marketing practices to position themselves as being environmentally friendly, even when they may not live up to those assertions. Greenwashing is especially difficult to police because there are still no broadly accepted industry-wide standards or definitions in these areas.

“The term ‘sustainability’ is still the most prevalent term used to describe impact and ESG investing, but it is ill defined and generic and can be manipulated to capture investments that are not very ‘sustainable’ or ‘impactful,’ Koutsantonis said. “Fund managers take great liberties in touting the environmental and social impacts of their investments, taking advantage of the lack of widely accepted measurement, verification and certification standards, as well as investors’ limited bandwidth and still fuzzy nomenclature.”

Conservation Resources takes numerous measures to scientifically prove their positive environmental impact. The firm uses third-party testing to measure, verify, and certify that they have increased the levels of carbon sequestration in soil on their farms. Conservation Resources uses this data to generate carbon credits, which they can then sell on carbon exchanges. Conservation Resources also voluntarily complies with the industry’s strictest anti-greenwashing protocols.

Overcoming Misperceptions About Sustainability-Focused Funds

In addition to the deceptiveness of greenwashing, Koutsantonis also points to continued misconceptions — particularly in the U.S. — that investors must sacrifice investment performance when investing in ESG or impact investing funds. That’s just not true. While performance has varied over time, in many cases sustainability-focused funds have, in fact, outperformed their traditional counterparts. 

A 2024 study by the nonpartisan Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis found that sustainable mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) across both equities and fixed income have done better than funds that did not consider ESG factors in their investment process. While ESG funds have not escaped the increasingly toxic politicization around sustainable investing, the performance argument against these funds simply does not hold water.

Advice for Sustainability Career-Seekers

Koutsantonis offers pragmatic advice for young people and potential career switchers interested in “green careers.” In his view, people looking to make a positive environmental impact should put themselves in positions where they can have real influence, which often means leveraging monetary and economic power.

“We all want to save the world. It’s easy to get on the proverbial soap box and point fingers at what went wrong and what needs to change,” he said. “But being able to influence and direct capital, efficiently, toward real-world environmental solutions is a skill that will be in great demand. Put another way, when real environmental impact meets superior returns, it’s a tremendous combination.”

Overall, Koutsantonis has built a long-lasting career out of creating positive financial results for investors while simultaneously generating tangible environmental benefits. A sustainable future may just depend on many others being able to create similar “win-win” scenarios in which what’s good for the bottom line is also good for the planet.

Take the Next Step

For more insights and guidance on navigating the evolving landscape of sustainability and other related issues, stay tuned to our blog for future updates and expert analyses. And help us build a more sustainable and prosperous world through responsible investment practices by becoming a member of the Advance ESG community. It’s free to join and there are no future financial obligations. Together, we can make a difference in safeguarding our planet for future generations.

*Neither Advance ESG nor the author have any affiliation with Conservation Resources