Board of Directors

Matt Evans, Principal and Board Member

Matt is a Co-founder and Principal of UpEnergy. He has led many projects focused on poverty reduction in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He focuses on applying principles of social marketing and carbon finance to scale projects.  Matt was formerly the co-founder and Executive Director of Live Climate. Matt holds an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley and a BA in International Relations from Stanford.

Evan Haigler, Principal and Board Member

Evan is a Principal and Co-founder of UpEnergy. He has been a leader in the carbon finance and cookstove sector since its inception, contributing to the Voluntary Gold Standard Methodology for Improved Cookstoves and Kitchen Regimes V.1 and leading revisions for Version 3. Evan developed the first Voluntary Gold Standard Cookstove Project and is Co-Chair of the Carbon Finance Working Group at the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves. Evan holds an MS in Environmental Health Sciences from the University of California, Berkeley and a BS in Molecular, Cellular, and Development Biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

 Alex Rau, Principal and Board Member

Alex ia a Co-founder and Principal of UpEnergy. He is managing director of the carbon investment and management firm, Climate Wedge Ltd.  Alex has a decade of active market experience in carbon finance, emissions trading, and environmental commodities, and has worked with large corporate and institutional investors from Rio Tinto and Electrice de France to Cheyne Capital and CalPERS on carbon management and investment strategies.  Alex is a cofounder of U.S. carbon offset developer EOS Climate and was previously part of the Climate Change Services team in PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Energy Corporate Finance practice in London.  He co-authored the original version of the Voluntary Carbon Standard, the most widely accepted trading standard for non-Kyoto carbon assets, has a Ph.D. in physics from Oxford University, a B.A. from Cornell University, and is a CFA charter holder.