From Extraction to Regeneration

How We Monetize Nature Will Define Our Future

This was me in the early ’90s. On the left — wrapped in ideals. On the right — the real me: an IRR-driven investment predator, extracting value and squeezing costs like the future depended on profit, not on life. (Note the suspenders — Bulls and Bears.)

I spent over two decades deep inside global finance — first as an investment banker on Wall Street, armed with a Harvard MBA, then managing private equity alongside some of the most recognized players in the industry, including the Goldman Sachs Partners Fund. I’ve passed the most rigorous due diligence processes, raised significant capital, and operated at the highest levels of extractive finance.

So when I say I’m amazed at how the old system has cleverly disguised itself under shiny new banners, it comes from hard-earned experience.

Today, we’re inundated with seductive buzzwords: impact investing, venture philanthropy, catalytic capital. A new generation is stepping into the arena, wielding term sheets, valuation models, and frameworks that feel eerily familiar to the ones I used in leveraged buyouts two decades ago. They talk about innovation — but the underlying DNA is often unchanged.

Let’s call it what it is: extractive capital in regenerative clothing.

All too often, projects that fly the regenerative banner are being evaluated using legacy metrics — profit projections, weighted average cost of Capital, cap tables, industry benchmarks. Regenerative finance is then shoehorned into models designed to maximize short-term gains and orchestrate fast exits. But you can’t plant a forest with the logic of hedge funds.

Regenerative finance cannot be valued, measured, or constrained by the parameters of extractive capital dressed up as “impact.” It is not a hybrid of old paradigms.

It is a complete shift in how we perceive value, how we allocate capital, and how we structure returns.

And here’s the kicker: I’m seeing the same archetypes today — in some cases, the same language, the same mindset, the same playbook — that I encountered two decades ago in the world of private equity and leveraged buyouts. Only now it’s cloaked in the language of sustainability.

But the true revolution won’t come from rebranding extraction. It will come from rewiring capital flows around life itself.

That’s where the real journey begins — from extraction to regeneration.

What Do We Really Mean by Regenerative Finance?

If you want to understand the next great economic revolution — what comes after the age of fossil fuels, after the digitization of everything, after globalization 3.0 — you need to start paying attention to one of the most important and underappreciated questions of our time: how do we craft a revenue model for regenerative finance?

That’s not a typo. Not sustainable finance. Not green finance. Regenerative finance.

Let me explain.

For over two centuries, the global economy has been running on a fuel called extraction — mining resources, labor, data, and value, often without acknowledging — let alone compensating — the real stewards of the ecosystems and communities that sustained that value. The result? We have wealth on spreadsheets and poverty on the ground. Fertile landscapes have turned to dust, resilient communities have been hollowed out, and our climate is now sending the bill.

But something fundamental is shifting.

We’re beginning to value nature not for what we can strip from it, but for what it continuously provides — clean water, fertile soil, carbon capture, biodiversity, and something harder to quantify but essential for survival: resilience.

And once you understand this, you realize we can also finance nature — not by commodifying it, but by monetizing the services it provides in ways that regenerate ecosystems and empower those who care for them.

Reimagining Finance: From the Ground Up

This is not just about tweaking finance. It’s about reimagining its very architecture.

Traditionally, finance has been seen as a tool to grease the wheels of commerce — a means to scale business and drive growth. But in reality, finance is the energy field that shapes civilization itself. It decides where value flows, what flourishes, and what fades.

When capital flows into extraction, degradation is inevitable. But when capital is directed into regeneration, something profound happens — nature and economy begin to work in tandem, not opposition.

We move from a degenerative economy to a living one — an economy that thrives because it harmonizes with the cycles of life.

Regenerative finance rests on three tectonic shifts:

• From Depletion to Renewal — Capital that restores, rather than consumes.
• From Accumulation to Participation — Wealth isn’t what you hoard; it’s what you’re part of.
• From Optimization to Resilience — The goal isn’t efficiency at all costs — it’s adaptability over time.

And here’s the thing: this isn’t some utopian dream. It’s already happening on the ground. The only question is, can we scale it fast enough to meet the crises we face?

Time: Thinking in Seasons, Not Seconds

In the extractive economy, time is compressed. High-frequency trading, quarterly earnings, year-end bonuses — success is measured in how fast value can be extracted and flipped.

Regenerative finance operates on a different clock — the clock of nature. It asks, what will endure? It invests in systems built to thrive decades from now, not just cash out by the end of the quarter.

We’re talking about sowing seeds today that will grow into forests tomorrow. It’s a mindset shift — from instant gratification to intergenerational value creation.

Flow and the Commons: Capital That Circulates Like Life

Under the old model, capital acts like a vacuum cleaner — sucking value up to the top: to shareholders, offshore accounts, and boardroom bonuses. Meanwhile, the places that generate that value — the forests, farms, wetlands, and communities — are left depleted.

Regenerative finance flips the script. Capital circulates — like nutrients in a forest. It flows back into the ecosystems and communities that create value, nurturing them, growing them, and making them more resilient over time.

This starts with recognizing and rewarding the public goods our land stewards produce every day — clean air, biodiversity, water cycles. These benefits have long been taken for granted, noticed only in their absence. Regenerative finance transforms these “externalities” into internalized revenue streams, compensating the people who actually safeguard our common wealth.

But it doesn’t stop at recognition. Regenerative capital provides economic agency — the resources stewards need to not just survive but expand and thrive. That means hiring staff, acquiring land, investing in infrastructure, and entering new markets. It’s capital as empowerment, funding the transition from subsistence to regeneration.

And perhaps most crucially, it ensures long-term security. For those who care for the land, regenerative finance offers trust funds or reserves that hold value over time — not just as a buffer against risk, but as recognition of the living capital they grow. It’s stability with purpose — a financial cushion that allows them to innovate, weather uncertainty, and pass on something enduring.

In essence, regenerative finance rewires capital to reward what sustains life. It makes the Commons — the shared wealth of nature and community — the focal point of value creation and distribution. Investors, policymakers, and local stewards all become participants in a living system, bound by mutual resilience.

This isn’t charity. It’s sound economics for a living world — value creation that adds to life, not subtracts from it.

The New Bottom Line

Let’s face it: we’re moving into an era where finance must do more than move money — it must move life. It must protect, regenerate, and circulate value in ways that make ecosystems and economies stronger together.

Because in the 21st century, the most successful societies won’t be the ones that own the most, but the ones that regenerate the most.

The next frontier of finance is here — and it’s alive.