Representatives from four leading private foundations will discuss how their organizations have helped fund and create climate-change solutions, in a panel moderated by the Dean of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, on Wednesday, Feb. 20, at 4:30 p.m. at Yale University.

The discussion, “Funding Solutions to Climate Change: A Philanthropy Panel,” will take place at the GM Room in Horchow Hall on 55 Hillhouse Avenue (map). The talk is part of the Carbon Finance Speaker Series, sponsored by the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale and the International Center for Finance. The talk is free and open to the public.

The panelists are Stewart Hudson, president of the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation; Ted Smith, executive director of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation; Leslie Harroun, senior program officer for the environment for the Oak Foundation; and Michael Northrop, program director of sustainable development for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. The panelists will discuss funding approaches being pursued by their foundations, identify their key areas of funding and explore how a foundation knows when its grants are paying off.

The Carbon Finance Speaker Series, supported by the Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation, is taking place as financial institutions across the country make significant investments in clean energy, energy efficiency and carbon markets. In 2006, a record $100 billion was invested in clean energy and energy efficiency, and nearly $25 billion of carbon value was traded.

The Center for Business and the Environment at Yale’s mission is to be a leading academic center in the global advancement of knowledge and solutions at the business-environment interface through programs that support student and faculty interests in research, education and outreach. For more information on investors and climate change, contact Bryan Garcia, program director, at bryan.garcia@yale.edu.

The International Center for Finance provides a focus for leading scholars to work on key empirical and theoretical problems in financial economics. Research areas include corporate finance, asset pricing, fixed income and derivatives, international markets and law and history of financial markets. For more information, visit www.icf.som.yale.edu.

Each lecture in the Carbon Finance Speakers Series will be recorded and made available online at www.yale.edu/cbey/. To encourage ongoing dialogue, the Center for Business and the Environment at Yale’s website is also equipped with a blog feature accessible to the public.