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What is Acre?
What is Acre and can you share more about your mission?
Thomas Rochford - Acre provides recruitment, executive search, talent development, and advisory services exclusively focused on markets and organisations that are trying to progress the world towards a more sustainable future. We have four offices globally in New York, Amsterdam, London and Singapore.
At a top level, Acre has a deep and rich history in the carbon markets. Way before my time with the business (I joined Acre a year ago), the organisation's founder, Andy Cartland, was involved in placing—and working with—some of the people instigating the clean development mechanisms back in the late 2000s.
As we've grown in North America, we’ve built on that foundation in the carbon markets and our networks and expertise in the nature-based solutions space. Over time, this has brought Acre to the world of heavier engineered carbon solutions, which has become a primary focus for the North American team.
We also work in other clean technology areas across the entire gamut of clean energy production and storage technologies and in the carbon world. We found that the technical expertise of my team and I, who all have a deep track record in cleantech, combined with Acre’s knowledge of the carbon markets, gives us unique and genuinely holistic coverage.
Sustainability Inspiration
What inspired the creation of a recruitment business focused on sustainability?
Gloria Mirrione—Acre started 20 years ago when Andy anticipated the upcoming opportunity and need for sustainability expertise across the UK and European talent landscape.
Acre's first endeavours were the sustainability practices in Europe and the UK. I am part of the global sustainable finance practice Acre formed ten years ago and lead the North American sustainable finance team. Climate transition and clean technology development are closely intertwined with our sector. I am passionate about working with and supporting firms that invest in this space and those that are launching these strategies.
Thomas Rochford — Andy is genuinely passionate about the work, which is what attracted me to Acre; his passion for recruitment with a positive impact is embedded in the organisation's culture.
Andy's qualification is in Zoology, with a focus on marine life. He has been heavily involved with a non-profit called Ocean Generation, which is particularly focused on marine health and ocean quality. He has linked that to our work with ocean enhancement innovators and the blue carbon space. The mission-driven culture was miles away from what I'd experienced in more conventional recruitment organisations.
Showcasing Talent
What have you found to be the most effective way of showcasing the best talent? And what traits do businesses that attract such talent have in common?
Thomas Rochford - It’s an interesting question; I don’t necessarily resonate with the terminology ‘showcasing talent’. Acre is much less ‘salesy’ than the commercial approach you may associate with conventional recruitment.
We are very client-led. Ultimately, to showcase the best talent, we need to know our clients and the assignments we are working on inside out. This will allow us to share their stories with candidates and attract the perfect fit.
The technical fit for a role is important, especially in some of the more niche areas of CDR, but understanding a candidate's motivations and sharing their story with the client allows us to find those moments where a client and candidate click.
The point of how businesses can attract the best talent really depends on the function. If we talk about technical hires, I think successful employers have done a great job hiring on potential, whether that’s more junior staff or talent from adjacent sectors. They’ve been willing to invest the time to slightly upskill those people to get them up to speed, which we can support. We’ve recently had a few clients who were unsure certain experience would translate but trusted us and landed some great people.
Achieving B-Corp Status
Could you explain what being B-Corp certified means to Acre and what challenges you needed to overcome as a business to achieve this coveted status?
Gloria Mirrione — B-Corp is a for-profit entity with a social mission that must achieve impact requirements and operate with those commitments. These are environmental impact, social impact, and diversity, equity, and inclusion. It sets a high standard for each criterion.
When you receive the B-Corp accreditation, it's exciting and something to be proud of, but it's a journey—it's not as though you've won an Emmy! We see it as an ongoing commitment to progressive social impact and environmental stewardship, which is just the beginning rather than the end goal.
Acre has been working with impact goals in mind for 20 years, and while the B-Corp certification is an excellent way to quantify the commitment, it serves as a benchmark. It urges us to continually enhance our impact beyond the prescribed standards.
My personal and professional commitment to impact aligns with this, too. I am a board member of B-Corp Greyston, a New York-based bakery that focuses on human impact, such as its inclusive hiring process. The financial service industry is, by definition, profit-focused, but what we are seeing in up-and-coming talent is the importance of aligning to firms that also have purpose goals as well as profit.
Attracting CDR Talent
What advice would you have for the nascent CDR industry to attract the best talent in the CDR space?
Thomas Rochford - I think employer brand is critically important. Make sure whoever is focused on this internally, whether it's human resources, talent acquisition or operations, is proactively researching the young professional networks in that local area to ensure the brand is well represented. For example, my colleague Quentin does a ton of work with the Young Professionals in Energy network.
Employers must also ensure that they've really considered how to tell the business's story to the market. Often, employers, especially early-stage start-ups, begin hiring before considering what the process needs to look like.
CDR Challenges
What do you consider the biggest challenge the industry is facing in 2024, and what do you think is needed to solve it?
Thomas Rochford - On the recruitment industry side, I think the challenge or the aspiration for recruitment service providers should be added value; how we and our peers will strive to go beyond conventional, transactional recruitment.
Many mid-sized and larger organizations are investing heavily to build out internal talent acquisition teams, which is absolutely essential. As a search provider, we must offer value that will supplement the work of those internal professionals and we, as specialists, must be able to offer unique networks and insights. For example, we recently compiled a substantial salary benchmarking analysis for a global energy business building out a CCUS and low-carbon team in the US.
The challenge in the carbon solution space is the immediate scalability of solutions that can plug the gap left by the pull away from nature-based projects. The MRV piece is always challenging outside the heavier engineered solutions, but the heavier tech is less scalable today. It’s going to take a multi-solution approach.
Most of the companies we support are working on first-of-a-kind solutions. No one has done what these businesses are trying to do before. Our brand's unique proposition is to source highly talented people from diverse industries who can bring the right skill set to help accelerate clean-tech deployments.
It’s challenging, but that’s what makes it exciting.
