Impact Investing in an hour

The essence of impact investing in an hour - thank you Ed Dugger of Reinventure Capital and Bentley President Brent Chrite for another outstanding...Read more


Thank you to our Natural Capital panels and panelists

A big thank you to Carrie Houtman of Dow and Megan Reilly Cayten of Climate Asset Management for their insights during our afternoon  Read more


Join us for the 2023 CFA Boston Sustainable Investing Conference on November 8th

It's hard to believe that it has been 10 years since we created the first Sustainable Investing conference for what was then the...Read more


Our CFA Boston Sustainable Investing Conference is back live on November 29th

We are delighted to be back live for our annual CFA Society Boston annual Sustainable Investing Conference on November 29, 2022 at the Boston Park...Read more


Proposed Rule on Climate-Related Disclosures for Investors: A Conversation with Renee Jones, Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the SEC - April 26th

Please join us on April 26th at noon for a deeper dive into the SEC's proposal for enhancing and standardizing climate-related disclosures in a...Read more


About Riverbend Advisors
MJ Greis Photo

Riverbend Advisors is a consulting firm that applies new financial and business models to create and execute projects that advance the sustainable economy.

Michael Greis is the Principal of Riverbend Advisors. He draws on over thirty years of sales & marketing, client relationship management, business development and project management experience at the leading edge of information technology products and services, combined with advanced work in finance and wide-ranging experience in public/private partnerships and government-university-industry interaction, to advance sustainability-related projects and businesses. The breadth of his experience enables him to successfully distill complex technical and financial topics into comprehensible value propositions for a wide variety of stakeholders.

Resume

Selected projects:

  • Sustainable Investing 2015 - Theme and topic development, speaker selection and recruitment, and team leadership for 3rd annual BSAS Sustainable Investing Seminar scheduled for November, 2015.

  • Solar PV Business Development and Strategy - Identifying and developing prospects for a leading Massachusetts solar PV development company through effective stakeholder engagement. Focus on municipalities and local educational organizations to develop community-wide partnerships and opportunities.

  • Measuring and Benchmarking the impact of material non-financial information - Topical research in support of an exploratory project on possible approaches to incorporating non-financial information into firm valuation.

  • Panel: Getting Buy-In from the Market Analyst: How to Connect ESG Performance With Traditional Portfolio Management - Developing and moderating panel at Skytop Strategies ESG Summit, upcoming June 2015.

  • "Sustainable Investing: Taking the Long View" Developed themes, recruited speakers and led team that produced successful 2nd Boston Security Analysts Society Sustainable Investing Seminar in November 2014. Attendance of 130 nearly doubled that of the initial 2013 event. The seminar will now be an annual event. Keynotes by Verne Sedlacek, President of Commonfund, and , founder, Principles for Responsible Investment, highlighted the session. Session agenda

  • "The Potential Use of Sustainability Scenarios as a Supplement to Stock Price in Equity Valuation by Long-term Investors" - Research & interviews for, and collaboration with Steve Lydenberg (author) for his invited paper for the Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership and the Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute, presented at Columbia Law School September 2014.

  • "Sustainable Investing: Moving from the Margin to the Mainstream" - Conceived and led a team that produced this first-ever full-day Boston Security Analysts Society Sustainable Investing Seminar. The success of this sold-out event and the enthusiastic response from the participants has generated the demand for a follow-on session in November 2014. Summary of session

  • Promoting Sustainable Investing - outreach within the investment industry to advance the practice of sustainable investing. Engaging with individual professionals to educate and inform, with sustainable investing firms to develop new business, and with mainstream firms to encourage collaborative approaches to developing and integrating sustainable investing offerings.

  • Solar installation on closed landfill - Initiated and spearheaded successful multi-year effort to install large solar PV system on capped municipal landfill in Needham.

  • Solarize Needham - Developed strategy and led successful effort for local participation in Solarize Mass. Built collaborative team including municipality, volunteers and community organizations. Led RFP response and developed marketing strategy that led to over 125 contracts signed. Now developing follow-on strategy to continue outreach beyond end of program.

  • SEC Climate Change Disclosure Seminars - Developed and ran two successful seminars for the NY Society of Security Analysts and the Boston Security Analysts Society that highlighted the opportunities for investors, investment managers and analysts to use these guidelines for market advantage.

  • Needham Summit on Energy and the Environment - Built community buy-in for sustainable economic development by convening a well-attended public forum on energy and the environment that connected state policies to local goals and aspirations. Event Summary

  • NStar Community Challenge - Increased local participation in the Mass Save program, proving the value and impact of local organizations in cost-effectively achieving energy reduction goals. Significantly overachieved utility-set targets (236% of electricity goal and 151% of heating goal), faster than any other town in the program. The organization was awarded more than twice the funds initially allocated by NStar.

Site Design by: COH Consulting, Needham, MA and Michael Greis