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Libby Blanchard is an academic researcher focused on improving the scientific integrity and equitability of climate policy. She has particular expertise in climate finance, carbon markets (carbon credits and nature-based climate solutions), climate targets and net zero commitments, and environmental policy processes.

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Dr. Blanchard is currently a research associate at the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy and the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Utah. She collaborates closely with Oxford Net Zero and the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project. She completed her PhD in 2020 at the University of Cambridge, where she was a Gates Cambridge Scholar.

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Her research has been published in Nature, One Earth, Conservation & Society, Ecosystem Services, and in several books.

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She has also co-authored a white paper with Microsoft on sustainability and has provided public comments on carbon credit integrity to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and other organizations, and testimony to the California Air Resources Board.

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Her public communications on climate policy and practical ethics has been published in national outlets such as Nature, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Houston Chronicle, the Oregonian, the Salt Lake Tribune, the High Country News, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

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She increasingly serves as a subject matter expert in leading media outlets, including Bloomberg, Newsweek, The Guardian, and MIT Technology Review. 

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Prior to academia, she worked in the specialty coffee industry for six years, where she launched the development branch of a coffee importing company to improve coffee producer livelihoods while conserving the biologically diverse environments where coffee is grown. During that time, she raised $4.4 million for development initiatives in 11 countries. These projects were featured at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting (2011 and 2010) and National Geographic's Wild Chronicles television series.

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