Like many investors of late, I have been scrambling around trying to find investments that will bring in a rate of return without causing harm to the environment.

My goal is to create a truly regenerative portfolio and invest in ecologically sound investments, so that my money is actually making a positive difference in the world, not contributing to the current mess we find ourselves in.

But these kind of investments are really difficult to find on a global scale, because of the financial systems that we have built up over decades, how we think about returns, and because most of the work happening to reduce the risk of climate change is non-profit (i.e. it is risk mitigation, not profit generating).

However, that isn’t to say that the world and investors aren’t interested in ecological projects, rather there just isn’t enough of them offering any form of rate of return to divert capital from other industries.

How to raise £2,000,000 in 48 hours

In September of this year, Triodos Bank’s crowdfunding arm listed a new bond offering to finance a rewilding visitor centre in Scotland. Trees for Life, a conservation charity focused on the regeneration and restoration of the Caledonian Forest in the Highlands of Scotland were raising money to fund a visitor centre and accommodation with the long term aim to get more people closer to nature, exploring the region’s wildlife, learning, and getting involved with rewilding.

They were offering the bond at 6% a year for 9 years. As with any investment, there are risks involved, but to put things in perspective with today’s other offerings, 6% a year is comparable to investing in the stock market, a good return on a buy-to-let property, and much more than any government bond currently on offer. Plus the money is actually being used for something I believe would make a positive difference, and something that I will definitely visit once completed. So I, like many others, scrambled to get registered on Triodos’s crowdfunding platform and buy some bonds that would actually green my portfolio.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get registered in time and within 48 hours £2 million had already been pledged to build the rewilding centre. I joined the waitlist in case they released more bonds, and while I am slightly disappointed that I didn’t get to be part of this, I am glad that it was fully funded. It’s also a very strong signal for other potential green investments.

Can you make regeneration profitable?

Investors think in terms of return; a.k.a. money making money and compounding interest. Regardless of what you as an individual think the role of money is in society, investors primarily look at returns. Therefore to get money flowing into regeneration, rewilding and renewal projects you need to make it attractive to investors.

So many people jumped on the Trees for Life rewilding centre bond offering for two reasons. 1) because it was contributing to a better future and, 2) because it was offering a great rate of return in today’s climate. I am convinced that the bond could have been offered at half the rate, e.g. 3% per year for 9 years, and they still would have reached their full funding target. In fact of Triodos’s 28 crowdfunding projects in the last 2 years, only 1 of them didn’t reach full funding.

One of the big barriers to entry in terms of investing in ecological and regenerative projects is that most of them don’t need £2 million in funding, and others don’t have visible monetary returns. Local projects need a way to reach local people, so instead of millions, they could be able to raise thousands of pounds to create better local environments.

For example, investing £20,000 into restoring a local park can have great value on the health of the area, wellbeing of local residents and reduction in air pollution, but that isn’t measured in monetary returns. However, like one of my local parks, if you were to add a local petting zoo, mini golf and cafe stand, then there would be money generated to repay the initial investment. The same can be applied to re-zoning dead land for allotments — once the initial investment in the soil has been repaid, the allotments can be rented and investors of the project can receive a return.

Other times, the idea and plan can come first and the investment will follow. Boyan Slat is a young entrepreneur who came up with the idea to use the oceans natural currents to collect plastic waste and pull it out of the ocean. He presented his idea at a TEDx talk, and then started his own company called The Ocean Cleanup. He first raised $2.2 million from a crowdfunding campaign to get the project started. Paypal co-founder Peter Thiel gave him a fellowship of $100,000 to help his idea. The King of Norway awarded him a Young Entrepreneur Award and Forbes included him in their ’30 under 30’ list. To date he has received millions from companies in Silicon Valley who believe in his theory that ‘technological innovation is a way to enhance our human capabilities’.

What about traditional finance?

Triodos is unique in that it is a fully regulated bank in Europe, and so it has a vital crossover of knowledge between how the traditional investment world works and a focus on ecological principles, cultural respect and on people and the environment. In short, they understand the need to move money to finance better projects that can improve our climate and local environment.

Wall Street and the largest funds have jumped on the green train in the last few years, and with environmental, social and governance (ESG) corporate policies and ESG exchange traded funds becoming very popular. However, BlackRock’s ex-chief investment officer believes ESG and green funds could have zero impact on climate change because “there is no connection between the two things”.

“It’s not because they are evil, it’s because the system is built to extract profits,” he said to the Guardian. “In many cases it’s cheaper and easier to market yourself as green rather than do the long tail work of actually improving your sustainability profile. That’s expensive and if there is no penalty from the government, in the form of a carbon tax or anything else, then this market failure is going to persist.”

The current investing system we have wants to continue doing business as usual for as long as possible. The unfairness of how money makes money is best left to a different argument and one that can be solved with taxes, but for the sake of making a difference in where money is invested, we need more truly green investments and we need to think more like investors.

As individuals, we now know what is happening to our planet through climate change, and we are starting to feel first-hand the effects. We are starting to wake up to who is responsible for the most damage, and to the link of where our pensions and ISA’s & 401k’s are currently invested in. For lack of better options, the ESG funds packed with greenwashed companies are the winners of today — but with projects like Triodos’s crowdfunding platform, tomorrow could see rewilding and regenerative projects gaining prominence and investment money.

Do your ideas need funding?

If you can find a project that can plant trees, sequester carbon, regenerate local communities and/or reduce pollution and waste, then there are millions of pounds waiting for you. Even local community projects can raise money, with the benefits going back to the local community. Regardless of the initial investment amount needed, if you can offer a 5% return on initial investment today, then people will be lining up to fund you. It’s time to dream a little bigger and not let money be a limitation, rather start looking for money to fund your projects.

“If you establish, or re-establish, local economies on the right scale and with the right standard, then politics would come right as a matter of course. I don’t know what you’d call the result — probably not capitalism or socialism.”

- Wendell Berry,

The World Is Starved Of Good Ecological Investments was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The economy as it now is, prescribes plunder of the land owners and abuse of the land. — Wendell Berry

In Wendell Berry’s essay ‘An Argument for Diversity’ he discusses the growing trend for ‘off-farm work’ that swept through the the U.S countryside in the 1970s &1980s as women and the young left farms and went to work, study and live in cities. While not a bad thing for the individual, the trade off for the human community, local economy and natural health of places are the things that have paid the price of progress.

This price has since been paid all over the world, as farming communities and local economies are destroyed in the pursuit of ‘professional status’ and a modern life full of convenience. For the communities left behind, they are under ever more pressure to abuse the land, either through using chemicals and machinery to meet yields, or to focus on mono-crops that decrease in quality over the years due to the lack of soil repletion. Berry argues that we need a greater variety of species, plants and animals back into the countryside, as well as humans and their knowledge and skills that can be adapted sensitively and elegantly to the place itself, not a generic ‘one size fits all’ solution from a textbook. More than that, he argues for affection towards the land.

How we lost our affection towards the land

Affection is something humans display towards each other, and something that in today’s world we show to objects that we own. We often see our neighbours affectionately polishing their cars every Sunday morning, city women carrying expensive handbags as if these bags were babies or animals. We see affection towards things more than towards people. And these days, we rarely see people paying affection to nature.

Perhaps this is because in big cities we are surrounded by great wealth, as well as many people engaging in pursuit of wealth. But what is this wealth for, if it does not make our lives easier?

When thinking of affection towards nature and living in cities, I am often reminded of Jon Jandai’s Ted Talk about living in a big city and the difficulties of modern life. In it he discusses the difficulties to acquire our basic needs, with the need to exchange our time for money just to afford housing, food and medicine. Jandai found that by moving back to the countryside his basic needs were met easily and he could focus on caring for the land and environment around him.

“Life is easy. And from beginning until now, what I learned is the four basic needs: food, house, clothes and medicine must be cheap and easy for everybody, that’s the civilization. But, if you make these four things hard and very hard for many people to get, that’s uncivilized.

So, now when we look at everywhere around us, everything is so hard to get. So I feel like now is the most uncivilized era of humans on this Earth.

We have so many people who finish from university, have so many universities on the Earth, have so many clever people on this Earth. But, life is harder and harder. We make it hard for whom? We work hard for whom right now?”

After a brief time living in Bangkok, Jandai moved to Northern Thailand, bought a piece of degraded land and focused on regenerating it, using it as a seed saving hub and learning centre. He again shows affection for the land, the human community and the local economy, and has shown many others the way to do so too. In his Ted Talk, just as Wendell Berry asks in his essays, Jandai asks “Why we destroy our spirit, why do we destroy our ability that much?”

Rebuilding our affection towards nature

So how then, do we start to show affection towards the land and nature?

Economics, the economy and the narratives of competition often exclude affection, as it cannot be easily measured nor can a scientific discipline easily account for our full range of emotions. Therefore it has traditionally ignored it. Yet affection is one of humankind’s biggest motivators, and as English philosopher Jon Ruskin said, part of the force of the Soul that powers us.

To properly approach affection towards nature, we must start to understand that our narrative of growth, competition and economic development is stunted. It ignores the costs that come from economic development. It forgoes the long term in favour of the short term. It ignores the environmental, social, communal and emotional effects of this growth, reducing progress down to numerical figures and abstract percentages.

Henry David Thoreau got it right when he said,

“this curious world we inhabit is more wonderful than convenient; more beautiful than it is useful; it is more to be admired and enjoyed than used.”

This is the quote we need to follow to relearn affection towards nature and the earth.

We need to renew our wonder in the world, to again see it’s true beauty, and to stop using nature, instead admiring and enjoying what it is still naturally providing. Thoreau presented his quote to his graduating class of Harvard back in 1837. Over 180 years later, we are still struggling to truly grasp his wise words.

Restoring Our Affection Towards Land And Nature was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Like many, I am horrified at the environmental destruction I see when watching the news. Perhaps I am even more scared at the state of our world because these forest fires, deforestation, flooding and ice cap melting isn’t new — these things have been happening for many years already without the media attention. That the issues I first discovered 13 years ago at university are still happening — that they are happening at unprecedented rates, and in such a volume that we might not be able to stop the disasters that will follow.

I am also disappointed with myself. I could have done a lot more to raise awareness, to reduce my footprint and to dedicate my time to making a difference. I know one person cannot make a difference, and I don’t personally regret my choices in life, but I do now believe that I need to build up my voice and to start with where I am today.

When I was at university I was part of a few environmental groups and throughout my 20s I read environmentalist literature, took a permaculture design certificate and volunteered in remote regions, living a life closer to nature. I even helped a non-native speaker complete their degree and write a thesis for Gaia University. I always try to recycle and my dream is to regenerate a plot of land and grow a forest. But at the same time I invest in the stock market (and via index funds, with all the companies I dislike). I work in finance and I take way too many flights (well I did pre-covid). I eat meat sometimes and buy plastic bottles occasionally (mostly out of convenience). By 20 year old self might be a little disappointed in me (although my 30 year old self is wiser).

What I’ve learned since leaving university is that life isn’t black and white. We can’t all be minimalist tree huggers or evil corporate mercenaries destroying the environment. Life is so much more nuanced than that, and I am glad I am now in a position to grasp the complexities of human nature, the world we have built and the systems we now live in.

Why I Started A Regenerative Finance Publication

I want to focus more on the good, on the potential, on the possibilities, rather than the negatives.

For the last few years I’ve had a feeling of wanting to focus on the future, on doing more to propel business, culture, my life and my impact in a direction I want to see it going. I want to focus more on the good, on the potential, on the possibilities, rather than the negatives and this is why I started a publication called Regenerative Finance. From my current viewpoint of the world, I see better ways of operating compared to merely business as usual and I want to share these views, regardless of how slow or difficult it may be to write.

For I have struggled to write in this arena for many years. I wrote a few book reviews to get started, followed industry leaders on LinkedIn, bought a domain and even outlined a book called Green Titans, but I’ve never felt like I was quite ready to write about this topic. So I gave up, side-lined my ideas and filled my time with travel writing and a career instead. Back then, what I wanted to write felt too big, I wasn’t able to capture the magnitude of it, let alone find a thread to start pulling at or make a dent in it.

Even today I still feel a little unprepared, but I also feel like I can offer the world something unique — an opinion and viewpoint from the crossroads of finance, permaculture, investing and regeneration.

In January I wrote an article called Regenerative Wealth, as a way to again explore the idea of money being a driver for environmental regeneration. In it I wrote;

A lot of money can be made through making the world (or even a tiny corner of the world) a better and more efficient place, and so in 2021 I plan to explore the idea in more detail with case studies and real life examples of fixing problems, making money and doing good.

Shortly after that article I created a publication, so that other writers could contribute (and help me) with the task of expanding the literature of environmental wealth, and reallocating money to places that could create large scale positive impacts. Even BlackRock chairman, Larry Fink, agreed with my vision, by writing “In the near future — and sooner than most anticipate — there will be a significant reallocation of capital.”

What next?

“I think of problems as gold mines. The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.” — Peter Diamondis

In short, I don’t know. I have committed myself to writing 4 articles by the end of the year for Regenerative Finance. It’s part of my focus on tackling the big goals I have in life, on doing more by doing less. As I now know myself better, I am an expert at being busy, but in being productive and producing content I miss the quality that I truly wish to create. In February I wrote a piece about Fintech’s role in greening financial Investment, which I also shared on LinkedIn and this led to me joining my employer’s sustainability committee and connecting with other like minded people. Like that article, I want my writing to make an impact, not an income.

Most importantly I wish to continue to research, write, create and tackle difficult things. For perhaps the difficult topics are the most important, and they are the ones that need to be explored the most; slowly, deeply and with patience.

What do you know about Regenerative Finance? was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hello and welcome to Regenerative Finance.

This is a new publication seeking to open up the conversation around truly investing sustainably, ethically, and for positive change. Business as usual is no longer an option, but what if we used money to regenerate the world?

For the last few years I’ve had a feeling of wanting to focus on the future, on doing more to propel business, culture, and my life in a direction I want to see the world going. I want to focus more on the good, on the potential, on the possibilities, rather than the negatives and this is why I started a publication called Regenerative Finance.

Topics of Interest I’d like to publish here:

I am seeking to curate the best content on Medium and I want to hear from writers who would like to explore the following topics:

• Regenerative Finance & Regenerative Economics
• Environmentalism, Ecology & Permaculture
• Green Business, ESG funds & Redirecting Money
• Climate Change, Sustainability & Sustainable Development
• Regenerative Agriculture & Circular Economies
• Similar topics you feel would be a good fit for the publication

Would you like to become a writer for Regenerative Finance?

Please clap and comment on this article with the following “Please add me as a writer.” I will reply to your comment once you’ve been added and once you receive the notification, you can then begin adding articles to the publication.

How to submit an article to a publication?

To submit to a publication you first need to be approved as a writer. Once you are added, then you will see the option to “submit to a publication” after clicking the three dots (…) at the top right. Choose Regenerative Finance and then submit. You will get a notification once the article has been added.

If you need more help, then you can check this How To article.

General Writing Guidelines:

• Articles should be between 700 and 1400 words, but if you feel you can say what you need to in less or you’re exploring an idea in-depth please submit anyway.
• Please cite and link any external research or expertise quoted or referenced.
• Articles will be read for grammar and spelling, but please ensure your article is ready for publication before submission (Please double check your own work to avoid spelling errors).
• Titles and the main image may be adjusted slightly to fit the overall aesthetic of the publication (please ensure images have a captions as to usage permissions — if in doubt you can use unsplash.com)

I can’t wait to read your submissions!

Write For Us (Regenerative Finance) was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I’m usually not one to write on this specific topic but I wanted to address something that’s been on my mind over the past few days, an issue that has continued to resurface over the past four years.

In the spring of 2017, I took an honors college course on the earth environment and its conditions, which examined how humans have created a disproportionate amount of harm to the environment in general when compared to any other organism. Although there is work being done to slow or even terminate certain detrimental activities in some respects (e.g., the phasing-out of Starbucks’ straws, Norway’s ban of deforestation, and the U.S.’ re-entry into the Paris Agreement), I feel there is still more that can be done to ensure a general wide and mainstream audience is taking action to protect our earth. This was especially apparent in 2021 — considering how environmentalism concerns were heavily-shelved the year prior due to, you guessed it, the COVID-19 pandemic — but it’s an issue that continues to this day.

But my primary goal is not to complain. I’m here with ideas. But first, a question:

What are two things that Americans generally love? Give up?

MONEY and COMPETITION

Whether you’re part of the upper, middle, or lower class, “the mass loves cash”. America is a country that thrives on consumerism, and capitalism has become a staple in American terminology. On top of that, Americans love to witness a contest. Whether it’s a football game, a singing/dancing competition, a game of high stakes poker, beautiful bachelor(ette’s) competing for love, or a professional online streamer event, Americans love to observe and take part in some form of contest (hell, one of the most popular T.V. shows in the late 2010’s was literally called Game of Thrones).

With these observations in mind, I strongly believe that the best way to catch the attention of Americans — and not just a sect of the population, but a general mass — is to fuse money (or other reward alternative) with competition, and somehow apply it to the betterment of the Earth; for Americans to take part in something not just out of a sense of soulless obligation, but honest anticipation. This is where a “cash for trash” campaign comes into play.

As you may already know, the concept of a competition promoting environmental protection is nothing new. I remember growing up, there was a campaign orchestrated by the Disney Channel called the “Friends for Change Games”, which incorporated its own environmental push by promoting its celebrities towards its young, impressionable audience.

So how would this be any different? Well, here’s my rendition.

This “trash for cash” incentive program (not my terminology) is a potential community contest where any number of contestants would compete in earth related events subdivided into categories (categories sorted by subjects you may find in school). For example, one category could be engineering. In this event, contestants would be given a specific amount of time to envision and create a model which would subsequently help innovate or create a system to improve the environment and/or promote a more eco-friendly, habitable life. The contestants would then explain their projects to environmental board judges, who would then decide on a winner. The person who wins would receive a sizable reward; one they could spend/use however they choose. Originally, the prize was cash, though this idea may be dropped due to ironic counter-intuitiveness (you would need to cut down trees to create said cash for an earth-saving effort, so the only “cash” being distributed is in the name of the competition, for creative purposes). My latest idea of a prize was some form of tax deduction because I believe an act of conservation could help serve various wildlife and environmentalist societies (and on top of that, taxes are one of the two universal certainties that all [or at least, most] Americans are affected by). All proposals will be explored by the board for careful review and (a) contestant(s) wins if the board accepts the idea and considers it a plausible idea for real-world application. And again, as I stated before, one of the primary goals behind “cash for trash” is not to appeal to one specific target audience, but a broad, general audience, to ensure as many people are informed about, advocating for, and participating in the project’s message as possible (further promoting the philosophy that innovation shouldn’t be defined or constricted by age).

The bottom line I’m trying to emphasize here is that Americans will be more likely to partake in an event/cause if they believe that there is going to be payment for it, a quid pro quo. This idea essentially highlights the American Dream because it shows that if you’re willing to put in work for something, you will be guaranteed compensation in some way: as a winning contestant and/or, at the very least, an environmentally conscious individual involving oneself in a more mutualistic, reparative relationship with Mother Earth, who we so often take for granted.

As the old quote goes, “You don’t know what you have until it’s gone”. So how long do we have to wait until it is gone? How much longer before the polar caps melt, the earth gets warmer and warmer, and more and more life is extinguished off either by pollution, overhunting, or rapid loss of habitation? How long will it be before there is no time left to worry? Although this is an admittedly cynical outlook, I — and so many others — want to be more optimistic and say that we’re doing better than we were, say, 50 years ago, but the future is still unwritten.

With all this in mind, I am not what some may call to be a “self-proclaimed environmental activist”, nor a major policymaker, and I know I could’ve done and could be doing a lot more to minimize various environmental issues with small, everyday actions (e.g., properly disposing of recyclable products in their designated receptacles). I’m merely one person with an idea, one person who hopes there are more people willing to listen, more like-minded individuals who are willing to put out their own ideas. And even if these ideas seem rudimentary, I feel that there is nothing wrong about laying the groundwork for a well-established beneficial cause, especially in a society that I feel could use a figurative flame under its posterior from time to time.

And with the new environmental reports coming out, what better time than now?

If you’ve gotten this far, thank you for reading. If you have any comments, questions, or ideas you’d like to pose, I’d be more than interested to hear them in the comments section or otherwise. Again, I know this idea is not original and may present various concerns, but my main objective and hope in this letter is to provide food for thought on how we as a greater society could take solid steps towards environmental repair and protection, and to ensure the next generation doesn’t know what they’ve truly lost from years long gone.

To Policymakers, on Behalf of Mother Earth was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The other day I was taking a stroll through our little patch of land; a newly grown forest we planted in winter. It’s a somewhat melancholic feeling to understand that these young alders, ashes, cherries, and oaks will easily outlive us. What we planted here is the possibility of oxygen, wood, food, and shadow for a future generation.

One could easily argue that trees are the most important and advanced technology earth has ever designed. Their use is so diverse, their workings so complex. Also, if properly managed, they form an endless, renewable source of energy.

To me, the tree, with its branches spreading in all directions, symbolizes a perpetual possibility for growth and wisdom. The roots firmly in the ground, in connection with the other plants, symbolize locality and community.

Still, the tree doesn’t care about my symbolizing. Neither about our daily hustles and bustles. The tree stands still, fierce in its simplicity.

It made me wonder about this carefree, contemplative way of living. Wouldn’t it be good to minimize our actions? Wouldn’t it be better to do less instead? And while we’re at it, wouldn’t it be better to possess less?

What is the good life?

When pondering the good life, we get carried away in exuberant daydreams about possessions and a life full of luxuries. We think that this kind of life will make it easier or at least more comfortable. Money then, seems like the inevitable solution to all of our problems.

In our minds, money is the key to success. It is connected to fame and status and is seen as the gateway that leads towards paradise.

This is the reason, I guess, why platforms like Medium and the like are filled with stories about moneymaking and success. They are playing on people’s (sub)conscious focus on generating income and status. These are clickbait writings, nevertheless.

We cannot blame people that they love to dream. We cannot blame them for chasing the good life. Yet — like with all modern devices — sometimes you need to update your mind about how this good life should look like.

Why are we so obsessed with money?

Money is nothing more than a means used to facilitate transactions. At least, that’s the reason why it was invented in the first place. Over time, money has evolved to something quite different. It has become a political weapon that splits society in two. That’s the (very basic) answer to the question of why the richest 1 percent on earth own twice as much as the bottom 90 percent.

Still, we have to understand that the value of money only exists because we all believe it exists. It’s a globally shared belief system. An illusion that has become reality.

The truth is: the value of money is only in our minds.

Eventually, money is a piece of paper. Or even worse, a digital number floating somewhere around in cyberspace.

We would be better of believing in trees.

Sentimental Capitalism

A world that worships money tends to put numbers on everything. For example, all the little trees in my little forest will be worth a lot once they matured. As the prices of timber keep rising, trees seem to promise a very dependable investment. From that perspective, the forest turns into a plantation.

This kind of thinking is called ‘sentimental capitalism’. It’s the idea that everything — ranging from nature, the individual, or local — can be valued in monetary terms. Everything has a price. And so, everything exists to serve our economy and the free market. If we believe this hard enough the future will be bright and shiny. Yes, the future will be good. Or so we are told.

Living in the now

This dream of success is a trap that locks us into futuristic, wishful thinking. We believe that everything has to be measured by the monetary value it might gain. Everything has to be an investment. And everything has to make a profit. And all of this will happen in some distant, nonexistent future.

Alas, what we forget is to live in the now.

And so, we keep on running. But what we should do is standing still. Indeed, just like the tree.

Don’t act

The promise of doing something good in a distant future won’t get us anywhere. We’ll have to do it now. And the best and easiest way to do this is to do less.

By reducing our actions and thus reducing our impact on the earth, we have the simplest and most efficient tool available to help the environment. More money and possessions won’t solve that issue. Neither is it a problem that can be solved through politics and big corporations.

It’s up to us to act. Or better: It’s up to us not to act.

“A change of heart or of values without practice is only another pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life.” (Wendell Berry, The Total Economy)

Be more like a tree

So, let’s be more like the tree: firmly and locally rooted, slowly and steadily growing, connected to our surroundings and community.

In that same spirit, I guess I’ll just keep tending to my small patch of dirt. I’ll be sitting here pondering life and watching my little forest grow. Eventually, the forest and I will grow old together. The forest will not make me rich, but a richer person I will be. That’s for sure.

Some Advice on Wealth was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

BP, one of the world’s largest carbon emitters and linked to a whole host of environmental damage, has a beautifully crafted website which depicts them ‘reimagining energy ‘ on their journey to net-zero carbon emissions. This recent documented journey allows them to continue extracting oil and dabbling in fracking, while also being included in ‘green funds’ as they are considered as working towards ESG (Environment, Social Responsibility & Governance) goals.

I hate to break it to them, but many individuals don’t want to invest their money with polluters, despite their new found journey towards eco-enlightenment. To be seen as a little greener, perhaps they should take a page out of Google’s playbook — the search engine was the first major company to become carbon neutral (back in 2007), and from 2017 have run on 100% renewable energy. They are now planning to eliminate their entire carbon legacy as a company within the next 10 years.

It took BP many decades to reimagine how they would source their energy, partly because of the system we had in place. Traditional financial institutions included them in retirement and investment funds because their profits and dividends were so high. Visibility over what funds were being invested in was opaque for individual investors and general knowledge about environmental damage was equally cloudy. Fast forward to today, and every company has added a splash of green to their websites and committed to sustainability in an attempt to keep their share of global investment — especially the ones that have traditionally contributed the most damage to climate change. It’s definitely a step in the right direction and having large fossil fuel companies considering carbon sequestering and reforestation is a good thing when tackling climate change.

But the tides have changed, and technology has offered us more visibility into investments and supply chains, a greater understanding of climate change, and new inventions that can help reverse environmental destruction and aid regeneration. For example, Dandelion Energy takes heat from the ground or nearby air to warm houses, instead of using something extracted thousands of miles away and shipped to your door via a pipe. Enel X is creating 2-way electric car charging ports, allowing parked cars to double as batteries when not in use. And Tesla, well Tesla and its innovations have become the darling of every investment portfolio at the moment. Developing new technology, becoming carbon neutral and selling genuinely green products are profitable opportunities. With a historical climate-damaging past, claiming to go net zero in 30 years (from now) might not be enough to keep BP looking like a good investment in the future. The truly innovative climate-changing companies of today will reap the biggest benefits in the future.

So what’s fintech’s role in greening financial investments?

As technology continues to evolve, fintech is such a big part of greening the world, because it helps change how money flows and offers individuals easier access to genuinely better alternative products and services, as well as a much wider choice in where to invest.

Just as Netflix has shown the movie industry that another way is possible, traditional finance is waking up to discover that their offerings are outdated and are now racing to change their product offerings. In January, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, suggested that companies not achieving net zero emissions by 2050 will be dropped from their portfolios. Leading ethical bank Triodos offers renewable bonds that are funded fast and often oversubscribed, showing how much interest there is in investing in renewable projects. And Spain’s Caixa Bank is adding a refer a friend = plant a tree style initiatives into their banking app.

Other banks and financial institutions are setting their own sustainable goals, but many are still a long way off from even achieving sustainability. While removing fossil fuels, weapons and tobacco producers from portfolios are quick wins, there is still an element of greenwashing, and many ESG funds still include BP and other repeat environmental offenders (such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, and even Nestle, whose presence in these funds shows how far we still have to go).

Nimbler fintech’s have the possibility to move faster, and can specialise and cater better for individuals than larger financial institutions can. Pensionbee recently announced they will offer a fossil fuel free pension fund, Wealthify already offers ethical investment funds managed by robo-advisors, and Clim8 Invest is a new app allowing direct investment into companies tackling climate change. Search engine Ecosia’s TreeCard debit card will use 80% of its profits to plant trees across reforestation projects, while Alipay’s Ant Forest, which rewards users for low-carbon lifestyles by planting real trees in their name. To date, over 120 million trees have been planted in China’s Ant forest. I’m sure I’ve missed many more green fintech’s here, please comment on any others you know of in the comments!

These are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the ‘green fintech’ that we will see in the next 5–10 years. As the ease of access to white label app solutions and banking infrastructure (like Railsbank) continues to grow, it opens up new possibilities, visibility and access for eco-entrepreneurs to reimagine what’s possible and raise money for climate regenerative initiatives. Switzerland’s finance department has already launched a Green Fintech Network in the hope of cultivating more homegrown innovation (and hopefully the FCA will repeat their Green FinTech Challenge again soon). Add to this blockchain technology which can track and offer full, immutable visibility to supply chains, while offering a legitimate way to issue carbon credits, and it’s no wonder that traditional financial institutions are suddenly pushing to become as sustainable and carbon neutral as possible — they can see the potential of their businesses melting away with the rising temperatures of the near future.

Fintech will inevitably help bridge the gap between environmentalists and finance — two groups with historically very little collaboration — which will bring innovation, environmental regeneration and finally start to make money, and investing, a real force for good.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.

Fintech’s Role In Greening Financial Investments was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The word ‘regeneration’ is fast becoming the keyword of this decade.

With sustainability not living up to its meaning, and with the near daily reports of how climate change, global warming and our lifestyles are irreversibly damaging the planet, we need to think beyond business as normal. And while the business world is going gaga over missions to Mars and self driving cars, Carol Sanford calmly highlights what businesses should be focusing on to survive and become powerfully disruptive in the next 50 years of worldwide change.

A woman with a vision, Carol Sanford has had an impressive forty year career working alongside big (and small) businesses to allow them to reassess the traditional, deep rooted and inherently damaging thinking within businesses, and to realign their organisation to develop people and the stakeholders. Carol most notably focuses on ‘the essence of a business’; who they are, what they offer and who they serve. Big businesses these days are seen as focusing only on profit maximisation with little consideration for the environment, but Carol wants them not only for them to change their image, but also their actions.

However, Carol sees potential within all businesses to transform the world and the business landscape.

By understanding the essence of why a business exists, the corporation and employees can align their values to better serving their customers needs and wants. One good example of this comes from Carol’s work with Seventh Generation — a company producing natural plant based baby products. Though looking at what the company wanted to offer, an employee of Seventh Generation took the initiative to train staff at distributing shops on creating a healthy environment for babies, whereby the information would then be passed onto parents. This led to the customers being more informed and eventually growing into a sharing knowledge community, and it also helped Seventh Generation become more trusted by customers.

Alongside the change of organisational focus, Carol imbeds her expertise in businesses becoming more responsible for their own actions. As well as her latest book The Regenerative Business, she is also author of The Responsible Entrepreneur; Four Game-Changing Archetypes for Founders, Leaders, and Impact Investors and The Responsible Business: Reimagining Sustainability and Success. These books have been game changers in the business world and are now required reading at many American Universities including Harvard, Stanford, Haas Berkeley and MIT.

This article was originally published on the Permaculture Association UK’s blog, and while it is focused on responsible business, Carol’s work has a surprising amount of overlap with Permaculture, earth care, people care and fair share ethics, and beliefs that caring for people at work will bring about positive outcomes for earth care and fair share.

In The Regenerative Business Carol seeks to show businesses how to evolve into an inspirational changemaker through developing holistic systems within a company. With the main focus being employees, Carol delivers a clear, level headed argument as to why its people should be a business’s main priority. If a business inspires an employee’s initiative to create systemic effects then those effects can improve the customer’s experience and the community, which will then have ripple effects out to landscapes and nations. The power of an innovative company lies within its individuals, and by developing talent and allowing employees the personal agency to follow through on their ideas, a company could see a more meaningful market contribution and a transformation of communities and ecosystems.

The Regenerative Business features case studies of companies far and wide. From Google and Intel, to P&G and Colgate, the book holds countless examples of how a large company has empowered their employees and made systemic changes that creates a space for innovation and genuine improvements for customers and other stakeholders. To some people, big businesses are seen in a negative light, but through The Regenerative Business Carol’s vision of the future can be seen. She expertly picks apart traditional business models of today, and not only explains the unconscious negative effects that they bring to an organisation, but also offers new, holistic and innovative ideas to replace the toxic businesses practices with.

Brainstorming is one idea Carol labels as toxic, instead offering cognitive dissonance (holding two ideas in the mind at once) as a healthier and more creative option that builds upon current competencies.

Common incentive and reward based systems are another practice that needs to be adjusted, with both leading to control over labour and strengthening the bond to superiors rather than the team as a whole. Divided into the aristocracy, behavioural, machine and human potential paradigms, Carol identifies 30 different toxic business practices that need to be reimagined, no matter the size or the industry of the business.

The ideas presented in The Regenerative Business are relevant for any business, permaculture orientated or otherwise, and will move a company towards becoming highly innovative and disruptive in their field. The book is divided into 3 separate sections; Part 1 explains the reasons why regenerative work matters and how it will address the challenges of the 21st century. Part 2 is a guide on how to assess your business and its work design. Ideally this will show gaps in holistic practices and force the business to assess where the current practices developed from and how those practices are serving the company. This section asks a business to envision what a truly successful, regenerative and innovate company will look like and asks it to all employees — not just the CEO or shareholders. Part 3 of The Regenerative Business then lays out different phases a company will need to go through in order to grow into a regenerative organisation successfully. The book offers guidance and concepts but encourages each organisation to develop itself uniquely, rather than try to fit into a pre-defined plan.

The Regenerative Business also suggests three criteria for growing human capacity, including:

1. Giving employees full responsibility for their actions,
2. Helping them develop external consideration (caring beyond themselves) and,
3. Allowing personal agency, whereby they look ‘beyond ableness’ in order to identify things that are achievable in the future but might not be in their ability range now.

It is these 3 criteria that will help a company create an environment for employees that sparks change and innovation, but the key is that the company needs to give a certain level of trust and freedom to people to follow through on their ideas.

Throughout the book there are incredibly relevant points about the world of work today and how the world of regenerative businesses would create immense ripple effects leading to a better future. While this book has been written with CEO and higher level executives in mind (perhaps to maximise the potential of change), the contents is applicable for anyone running a business (regardless of size), and also for employees who wish to maximise their potential.

There is often a stigma against big businesses, in regards to their actions towards earth care, people care and fair share ethics, but they also hold the ability and the reach to make great changes to our current economic environment. Carol Sanford could be called brave for attempting to create radical changes within businesses, but she understands that in the essence of a company, businesses firstly want to serve their customers and improve the quality of life for them.

Many companies have evolved using outdated or wrong fitting business models and if they take the initiative to focus on people and their potential transforming effects, then this could mean a whole new era of business. After all, imagine a world where regenerative agriculture is a staple in every company’s supply chain, or where permaculture ethics are embedded into a business’s DNA and actions.

As R. Buckminster Fuller says, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete”. And this is what Carol Sanford has been bravely trying to do — tap into the potential of businesses and steer them in the right direction of new business models, ones that benefit people, customers, communities, landscapes and in the end, entire nations.

This article was originally published at Permaculture.co.uk

The Regenerative Business was originally published in Regenerative Finance on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.