Green Success Stories

Restoring and Protecting over 100,000 Acres of Native Habitats via Mitigation Solutions

Green Success Stories

Green Success Stories shines the Green Spotlight on Brighton Heard of Westervelt Ecological Services. Brighton has devoted his career to providing mitigation solutions for impacts to ecological resources. He estimates that these efforts have restored and protected over 100,000 acres of native habitats.

Tell us a bit about your sustainability journey.

I’ve been intrigued by the natural world since I was a child and have always preferred to spend my free time outdoors. That interest led me to pursue a degree in Natural Resource Ecology and Management, with an area of concentration in wetland science, from Louisiana State University. While in school, I was offered an internship at a small company focused primarily on wetland consulting. After graduating, the company graciously offered me a full-time position and I began my career as an ecologist. While working for the consulting firm, I was able to contribute to the early stages of mitigation bank establishment and was eventually offered a Regulatory Specialist position with a mitigation banking company. From that day 14 years ago, my entire career has been spent restoring and protecting native habitats at a landscape scale. I would estimate that I have helped to implement over 100,000 acres of habitat restoration and protection in my career and look forward to what I can accomplish in the future.

Tell us a bit about the product or solution you offer.

I help to provide mitigation solutions for impacts to ecological resources and supply permittees with credits or offsets needed to satisfy permits. Fulfilling permit requirements helps to bolster the economy and ensure that valuable ecological assets are protected in perpetuity.

Share a green success story with us – how have you helped customers or other businesses in the fight against climate change?

Every restoration project that I have participated in has been protected by a conservation easement at completion of construction. All of these projects help to sequester carbon within the millions of trees that are planted, as well as providing flood resiliency benefits and refuge for wildlife in a rapidly changing world. Many of the projects that I contributed to in Louisiana along the gulf coast will help to buffer storm surge and reduce the intensity of ever-increasingly powerful hurricanes as they make landfall.

What would you do with $1 billion dollars?

With a billion dollars I would create an employee-owned ecological restoration company that truly values and appreciates the employees who have dedicated their careers to making the world a better place. Profits earned would only be reinvested into the company, which would never be sold. Employees, rather than private equity investors, would reap the benefits of the successful company.

What do you envision your industry looking like in ten years?

I believe that eventually all of the smaller companies will be bought-out because the market will become too expensive and competitive for them to survive. A few massive companies will dominate the market.

Kudos

Many thanks to Brighton Heard and Westervelt Ecological Services. Green Success Stories is happy to support and highlight your efforts! We invite you the reader to do the same.

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