Dave Chaffin, Ph.D.

Dave Chaffin, Ph.D., is a Senior Sustainability Advisor for Pure Strategies. He works with corporate clients to integrate nature and biodiversity into their sustainability strategies across direct company operations, value chains and responsible sourcing, and corporate climate commitments. Dave has extensive experience identifying, assessing and mitigating environmental and social risks in nature-based supply chains and is well versed in the rapidly expanding landscape of forest and nature related standards, targets and regulations including EUDR, TNFD, SBTN, Scope 3 FLAG and nature-based climate solutions. He focuses on strategic planning, value chain risk assessment, and corporate GHG accounting to help companies assess, disclose, and mitigate their forest and nature related impacts in a science-based way.

Prior to joining Pure Strategies, Dave led Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s global forest sustainability program. In that role, he worked to drive the responsible sourcing of forest-derived materials used in the manufacture of Kimberly-Clark products and packaging accounting for carbon and climate, biodiversity, and Indigenous rights related variables.

Previously, Dave served as Boreal Conservation Director for The Nature Conservancy, where he led a cross-functional team in designing and implementing TNC’s conservation strategy in the Canadian Boreal Forest, including working to increase Indigenous leadership and authority within North America’s largest commercial forest tenure in northwestern Manitoba. He has held marketing and business development positions with The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Fallon Advertising, and Best Buy.

Dave holds a Ph.D. in Natural Resources Science & Management from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of Wisconsin.