Biography – Jacob Malthouse
Jacob is Co-founder of the .ECO Internet domain. Together with his Co-founders Trevor Bowden and Anastasia O’Rourke, he conceived the idea for a domain ending run by the global environmental community for the greater good. Jacob fundraised seven figures from impact investors to support an eight year effort to secure exclusive global rights to run .eco. These rights are shared with a coalition of environmental groups including WWF, Greenpeace, IUCN and the United Nations. The .ECO domain is the only Internet suffix that requires a commitment to sustainable development and reporting against the sustainable development goals from all registered users.
Jacob is a former executive at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is responsible for coordinating the multi-stakeholder processes that manage key aspects of core Internet infrastructure. While at ICANN Jacob led engagement with North America and the Caribbean – including regular travel to engage with local stakeholders and represent ICANN at major Internet governance events in over twenty countries. Jacob also developed ICANN’s Fellowships Programme during this time. The ICANN Fellowships program has since introduced Internet governance to hundreds of technology pioneers from the developing world. It has been called ICANN’s “crown jewel” by Internet pioneer Steven Crocker.
Before joining ICANN, Jacob was Head of the Investment Team at the UN Environment Programme’s Finance Initiative, where – along with his colleagues James Gifford and Paul Clements-Hunt – he was responsible for architecting the negotiations that created the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. The PRI is an alliance between the world’s largest institutional investors, UNEP, and the UN Secretary General’s office. Asset managers controlling over $60 Trillion have now signed these Principles.
While at the United Nations Jacob also led an eighteen month internationally coordinated investigation into the materiality of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues to equity pricing. This work engaged over twenty financial institutions on four continents. As the original “Materiality Report”; it is credited with coining the term “ESG”. Combined with its partner report, an international investigation of the role of fiduciary duty in sustainability commissioned by Jacob’s team and produced by Freshfields, these works provided the foundations for the worldwide upswing in responsible investing.
Jacob is a Young Canadian Leader for a Sustainable Future, 2000. He holds a BA in Geography and Economics from the University of Victoria, Canada. He currently lives in Vancouver, Canada