Svetlana D’costa is a Master of Science in Sustainability Management candidate at the University of Toronto. She holds a BSc in Life Sciences, Ecology & Sustainable Development, as well as a Post-Graduate Diploma in Social Entrepreneurship.

She brings eight years of experience mobilizing capital for climate and circular economy startups across more than 10 countries, where she helped scale solutions from the ground up. Most recently, she led Strategic Partnerships and Sustainability in the Founder’s Office at rePurpose Global, where she helped pioneer a plastic credit financing mechanism, co-led a World Bank study on outcomes-based financing that informed future Reuse Outcome Bonds, and co-founded the Innovation Alliance for a Global Plastics Treaty, a coalition of 150+ innovators she grew and funded to advance fit-for-purpose climate finance at the UN negotiations.

Earlier, she worked on results-based and Pay-As-You-Go financing for off-grid solar across Asia-Pacific with partners including GOGLA and the IFC, and built zero-waste programs that cut emissions through landfill diversion. Her work has taken her from waste-recovery facilities and off-grid communities in India, Kenya, and Indonesia to UN treaty rooms and the World Economic Forum. She was also selected as one of 16 global fellows by The Sustainability Laboratory NY & UNESCO to co-design a sustainable development blueprint for La Palma in Spain’s Canary Islands.

Svetlana is passionate about scaling innovations for climate action and is drawn to work at the intersection of sustainability science, finance, and policy. She works to turn complex climate challenges into financeable, investment-ready solutions.