Daniel Morrell:
An Architect of the Climate Movement
Dan is Balance founder and CEO, entrepreneur and artist, recognised as one of the seminal figures in modern environmental strategy.
His career spans from the early days of the climate movement in the late 1980s to the development of the rigorous framework now underpinning Balance, a B Corp dedicated to addressing the interconnected crises of biodiversity loss, poverty and climate change. His expertise includes co-authoring the peer-reviewed methodology Converting Carbon Finance into Biodiversity Creation and publishing research on carbon pricing for the US Bar Council.
A Legacy of Firsts
One of the pioneers of the climate movement, Dan set critical early milestones in the 1980s that helped shape today’s environmental finance landscape. These included co-coining the term ‘carbon neutral’ – later recognised as the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year – and completing the first-ever carbon-removal transaction.
Dan’s expertise has always been rooted in practical, systems-level climate solutions.
He founded The Carbon Advisory Service Ltd, an organisation dedicated to optimising building refurbishment cycles. By coordinating upgrades to heating, cooling, ventilation and lighting simultaneously, the organisation delivered operational cost savings of 40–60% for existing properties, demonstrating a nuanced understanding of applied energy efficiency.
In 2007, Dan co-founded Carbon Gold, the first modern biochar company, reinvoking ancient Amazonian IP for contemporary use.
As the founder of Future Forests
Dan launched one of the first businesses built around large-scale, nature-based projects. Under his leadership, more than 250 blue-chip companies engaged with climate action through the concept of becoming ‘carbon neutral’. His work led to invitations to address the United Nations, advise 10 Downing Street, and support AOSIS (the Alliance of Small Island States) on adaptation, mitigation and carbon strategy.
Dan’s unique convergence of art and ecology
saw his planting projects embraced by the music and arts sectors. He established forests for luminaries and estates including Joe Strummer, Pink Floyd, The Sex Pistols, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Leonardo DiCaprio, and The Rolling Stones.
The Necessary Pivot: Hacking a Flawed Market
Dan watched with growing concern as the concept he helped create evolved into the sprawling Voluntary Carbon Market (VCM). He became profoundly disillusioned when systemic arbitrage began to pull offset practices away from verifiable nature-based projects and towards low-integrity ‘avoidance’ schemes (which do not remove carbon) and planting projects that failed to guarantee century-scale durability.
He concluded that the VCM had sacrificed fiduciary duty for profit. Having received investment from a venture capital firm, Dan found himself unable to prevent these harmful, short-sighted practices from extending to the very business he founded, and ultimately walked away.
Dan dedicated several years to charting a new path. The hard-won lessons learned from the VCM’s unintended consequences taught him that carbon removal, biodiversity, and the economic prosperity of local communities are inseparable pillars of any durable solution.
The Solution: The BALANCE® Methodology
Dan distilled these lessons into the Balance methodology, the foundation of Balance. The methodology asserts that the only way to achieve permanent climate mitigation is by ensuring the ecological and social pillars succeed first, with carbon removal following as the quantifiable welcome co-benefit.
This approach resolves the ethical and scientific failings of the old market, providing the legal and financial certainty needed for long-term investment.
Art as Action:
CHANT
Dan is also the driving force behind CHANT, a situationist and solutionist art collective and experimental music movement. CHANT reimagines Balance forests as living artworks. The collective’s unique "Space Punk" musical creations invite the public to engage culturally by donating to plant a tree and submitting a vocal sample for mixing. CHANT’s collaborators include legendary artists such as Andy Mackay, Martin Ware, Martin Glover, and Don Letts, with their debut album scheduled for release in 2026 on Balance recordings.