The Usual Suspects

“The Original Coalition: Downtown 2025 Greening Committee”

Public records show that as early as 2017, a “Greening and Public Realm Implementation Committee” operated under the Minneapolis Downtown Council’s Downtown 2025 initiative. This is the bureaucratic origin story of how we came to be in this situation. This was not a casual advisory group—by the time the carbon offset program formally launched, the coalition was already built. The overlap in leadership, institutional representation, and thematic focus makes one thing clear: Minneapolis’ carbon market evolved from an established downtown power structure — not from grassroots environmental demand. Understanding who was aligned in 2017 is essential to understanding how public forestry assets were later converted into marketable carbon instruments.

The committee was chaired by David Wilson (Accenture) and included:

  • Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board Assistant Superintendent of Environmental Stewardship and ringleader, Jeremy Barrick

  • Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board Director of Forestry Ralph Sievert

  • Peter MacDonagh - World famous stormwater expert and Owner of Kestrel Design Group, Chair of the Minneapolis Tree Advisory Commision. Peter co-authored the Minnesota Stormwater Manual and urban forestry methodology alongside Greg McPherson (founder of City Forest Credits) and Qingfu Xiao (3rd party verifier)

  • Green Minneapolis

  • The Trust for Public Land (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • Minneapolis Parks Foundation (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • Meet Minneapolis (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • Hennepin County (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • MNDOT (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • Ryan Companies (Current Green Cities Accord partner)

  • Jacob Frey - Current Mayor of Minneapolis (Ensured ARPA funding reached David Wilson, despite objections from City Finance)

  • Nancy Hylden - Hylden Law, represents Feeding Our Future ringleader, Amy Bock. Former employer of Sarah Clarke, Jacob Frey’s wife.

  • Winslow Capital (who funded the feasibility study for the carbon offset market to pursue the voluntary carbon offset market as potential ESG and portfolio boosting financial instruments)

  • Major financial institutions

  • Urban design firms who later received a supermajority of contracts related to public greening

  • Sustainability consultants

  • Downtown corporate stakeholders

  • The most powerful people in Minneapolis

  • City of Minneapolis officials

  • Faegre Baker Daniels (Jacob Frey’s former employer and Kingmaker)

  • This was not a casual advisory group. It assembled the same public officials, private consultants, and capital interests that would later design, implement, market, and purchase Minneapolis’ carbon credits.