Outspaces is excited to announce a new partnership with Fossagrim, an innovative organization dedicated to preserving forests through economic incentives and long-term agreements. Founder Håvard Åsli explains its mission, model, and vision for the future of forest conservation.
Let’s imagine you have just 60 seconds to explain Fossagrim to someone you meet on a forest walk. What do you say?
Well, assuming we are walking in an old-growth forest, I would say, “Look at the forest around us! THIS is what we help to preserve. Fossagrim helps organizations conserve forests like this one without having to buy the land. We partner with forest owners to secure continued forest growth through long-term agreements.”
The challenge is economic: forest owners make their living from timber. So, if we want forests to stay standing, they need to be rewarded for choosing preservation over harvesting. That’s where businesses and organizations come in. They purchase preservation certificates that document their contribution and rights to the nature benefits and can make claims for a local and tangible mitigation action with an immediate impact on biodiversity and climate.
It’s a system that makes preservation financially viable for the forest owner and gives companies clear, transparent value for their support. In short: forests grow older and wilder, and everyone in the value chain has a real reason to make it happen.
I understand you have an unexpected background. What were you doing prior to Fossagrim, and what was the moment when you decided, “This needs to exist”?
I was a VP in a Chinese seismic exploration company, helping oil companies map the ocean floor in search of oil and gas. Exciting work, but over time I felt a growing disconnect.
The eye-opener came when I read “The Overstory” by Richard Powers. That book rewired how I see forests. Not just as a source of timber, but as complex living systems that we existentially depend on. I realized that my analytical skills and business background were more than transferable—they were needed.
What struck me most was this: our economic systems massively reward harvesting forests and barely reward preserving them. That’s a structural problem. And structural problems need structural solutions. Fossagrim is one part of that solution!
Why did you choose this particular model?
The purpose is straightforward: preserve more forests. But vision needs mechanism.
In Norway, most businesses can’t buy forestland. Regulation, finance, or paperwork gets in the way. So, we built a model that removes those barriers and makes participation simple, safe, and valuable.
Our backgrounds in physics and engineering told us something important: forests deliver HUGE quantifiable value for climate and biodiversity. We proceeded to build a system around that—let nature manage itself, put the numbers into a framework, and create something businesses are genuinely willing to pay for.
We’re not all the way there yet. But what excites me most is the bigger picture: this model mobilizes private capital for nature conservation—and that could represent a genuine breakthrough in how we finance the natural world. With partners like KPMG, Gjensidige, and Outspaces, we’re building real momentum.
As a collaboration-based approach, can you also explain why partnerships with forest owners are central to your work?
Forests are extraordinary assets. They need only water, sunlight, and air to operate—and in return, they deliver invaluable services: climate stability, biodiversity, flood prevention, and a whole lot more. In Scandinavia, these assets have owners who currently make their living from timber. That’s the model the forest economy is built on.
If we want forests to remain standing, that model has to evolve. Forest owners must be rewarded for choosing preservation instead of harvesting. Creating that economic alternative is the foundation of everything we do at Fossagrim.
How can businesses and private individuals can get involved? And what incentives there are for them to do so?
Organizations and individuals can participate by supporting preservation projects through buying preservation certificates. Their contribution helps compensate the forest owner for the income they forgo by choosing conservation. In return, they receive transparent documentation of the contribution and the ecological value it helps protect.
And frankly: involvement is not optional. This is about the future—not in an abstract sense, but the actual future of our children and the ecosystems they will depend on. Sustainability ultimately means giving future generations the conditions they need to thrive. Forests are not a luxury. They are existential.
Of all the forests that you’ve helped secure so far, which one means the most to you – and why?
One forest that means a lot to me personally is the Kvistaul forest in Seljord.
When we visited the forest owner, he proudly showed us around in the pouring rain and told us how his grandfather had hidden wartime cabins in those woods, how he himself grew up exploring them, and how his grandchildren now do the same. He had planned to harvest the forest, which he believed to be the financially responsible thing to do. But when we showed him a model that would compensate him for preserving it instead, he chose preservation.
We ended the day with a sauna and a swim in the lake, and as people in good company around the fireplace always have, with good food and good drink under the stars until the early hours.
The next morning, slightly hungover, coffee in hand, I enjoyed the view across the lake framed by forest and watched the trout rising. That forest was still standing because companies like KPMG and Gjensidige had chosen to support preservation through Fossagrim.
That moment made the entire idea feel real.
If Fossagrim fully succeeds in meeting its goals over the next 10–15 years, what would look different in Norway?
If Fossagrim fully succeeds, the economics of forests will have been turned upside down.
Responsible businesses and consumers will expect the cost to nature to be reflected in the price of everything they buy. There will be a genuine understanding that business has a footprint on nature—and that ecosystems like forests do perfectly fine on their own, without human management.
The mindset shift I’m really after is this: what you make from a tree should be more valuable than what you cut down. That changes everything.
Because here’s the truth: forests are ecosystems of astonishing complexity and ingenuity far beyond anything we could engineer. They have existed for almost 400 million years without human management. They don’t need us. It is we who need them.
In that world, preserving a forest isn’t an act of charity. It’s the economically rational choice. That’s the future we are working towards.
About Fossagrim
Fossagrim partners with forest owners and businesses to preserve forests through long-term agreements. By creating economic incentives for conservation, they ensure forests remain standing while providing transparent value for supporters. Fossagrim’s model mobilizes private capital for nature conservation, making preservation a viable and rational choice for all stakeholders.