Bios
Jessica Grillo, Founder and Principal Consultant
Jessi has over 20 years of experience designing sustainability standards, facilitating stakeholder engagements, and developing due diligence frameworks and impact measurement systems that bridge environmental integrity with social equity and commercial reality. She specializes in helping companies, NGOs, and multi-stakeholder coalitions navigate the genuine tensions inherent in sustainability initiatives—building solutions that are both rigorous and achievable.
Jessi began her career in disaster risk and food security, serving as Director of Livelihoods for USAID's Famine Early Warning System (FEWS NET), where she led vulnerability and risk analysis across 26 countries in collaboration with US, UN and national government agencies. In 2012, she joined Rainforest Alliance as Senior Advisor for Social Science, leading responsible sourcing strategies and social monitoring and evaluation services for buyers and traders including Nestlé, Fyffes, Mondelez, and Olam, while helping generate over $40 million in program funding.
In 2019, Jessi founded Heartwood LLC to focus on nature-based solutions and agricultural supply chain sustainability. She helped co-designed Equitable Earth, a pioneering carbon market standard bringing climate finance directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and served as early designer and technical lead for the IDH Salary Matrix, a global living wage platform now used by 30+ companies. Her clients span the voluntary carbon market, sustainable agriculture, government agencies, and coalitions advancing sustainability initiatives.
Jessi holds a Master's in International Development from Clark University's Department of Sustainability and Social Justice (formerly IDCE). She serves on the Board of Directors for Living Wage For US. She and her family live in Bend, Oregon.
Jessica Grillo
Associated Consultants
Will Crosse
Anna Buxaderas
Anna Buxaderas
Will has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing inclusive conservation initiatives across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. With experience working at the intersection of sustainable land use management and value chain development, Will is passionate about building collective action among communities, governments,
Will has over 20 years of experience designing and implementing inclusive conservation initiatives across Africa, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. With experience working at the intersection of sustainable land use management and value chain development, Will is passionate about building collective action among communities, governments, NGOs, and the private sector to create aligned business cases and shared value for conservation in threatened forest landscapes. He is a firm believer that conservation and restoration must
centre on the customary traditions, rights and needs of communities to create equitable and durable incentives that address the root causes of biodiversity loss.
Between 2005 and 2022, Will worked for the Rainforest Alliance and Conservation International designing science-based frameworks and tools for monitoring, evaluating and adaptively managing nature-based solutions that support economic prosperity for rural communities while delivering durable conservation outcomes. More recently, he was Vice-President of Impacts at Everland overseeing a team responsible for project due diligence and impact evaluation and reporting. During this tenure, he also helped design Equitable Earth, a pioneering voluntary carbon market standard and platform focused on ending deforestation and biodiversity loss by driving climate finance directly to Indigenous Peoples and local communities via community-led forest conservation projects.
Will holds an MSc. in Oceanography from the University of Southampton, UK. He is currently based in Nairobi where he enjoys exploring the natural and cultural wonders of East Africa with his family.
Will and Jessi worked closely at Rainforest Alliance, and recently worked together again for Equitable Earth
Anna Buxaderas
Anna Buxaderas
Anna Buxaderas
Anna is always on a quest for the ingredients of a creative, happy and sustainable life and the recipe for a fair and just world where all living creatures can exist, thrive and flourish. Willing to re-connect with nature after twenty years of corporate work and big city living, she moved with her partner to a small rural community, betwe
Anna is always on a quest for the ingredients of a creative, happy and sustainable life and the recipe for a fair and just world where all living creatures can exist, thrive and flourish. Willing to re-connect with nature after twenty years of corporate work and big city living, she moved with her partner to a small rural community, between the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean sea, where she now balances her consulting work with tending a vegetable orchard and some art practice. She loves the taste of freshly picked ripen tomatoes, the sound of bells and knowing her neighbours.
During her work at different positions for multinational corporations from various sectors, Anna was responsible to develop, implement, audit and certify integrated quality, environment and health and safety management systems in Europe, South Asia, and Latin America, gaining expertise on project and team management as well as awareness on the difficulties and challenges of driving change and promoting the sustainability agenda within complex organisations.
After her MBA, she established herself as an independent consultant and, for the last 10 years, she has helped scheme owners, companies and producer organisations to improve the requirements and audit process methodologies of sustainability schemes and company codes of conduct by providing benchmark, research, gap analysis and expert advice.
Anna also works in collaboration with other small consultancy firms, where she supports the development and implementation of sustainability strategies and provides training on sustainability topics such as certifications and living wages.
Anna has worked with Jessi on the IDH Roadmap on Living Wages and other related corporate initiatives.