Regenerative Economics
See also: Regen, the movement of supporters of Regenerative Economics in the worlds of crypto and Web3.
Definition
"Regenerative economics is an economic system that works to regenerate capital assets, which are assets that provide goods and/or services that are required for or contribute to our well being."
2. Capital Institute
'Regenerative Economics is the application of nature’s laws and patterns of systemic health, self-organization, self-renewal, and regenerative vitality to socioeconomic systems. "
(https://capitalinstitute.org/regenerative-capitalism/)
Description
"Regenerative cultures are unique expressions of the potential inherent in the people and places of a given bioregion. They add value and health to the nested wholeness from local, to regional, to global in the understanding that human thriving critically depends on healthy ecosystems and a life-supporting biosphere. In strengthening regenerative economic activities, we need to learn to balance: efficiency and resilience; collaboration and competition; diversity and coherence; and small, medium, and large organizations and needs.
In other words, regenerative economics is an economic system that works to regenerate capital assets, which are assets that provide goods and/or services that are required for or contribute to our well being. We need to recognize the earth as the original capital asset without trying to reduce the intrinsic value of life to only utilitarian value to humanity, nor trying to make living capital convertible to financial capital as that would enable the most dangerous form of enclosure of the remaining ecological commons!
Regenerative leadership is a process [of personal development that aligns] one’s own way of being and actions with the wider pattern of life’s evolutionary journey within the communities, ecosystems, biosphere and Universe [we participate in].
As Janine Benyus has said so succinctly: “Life creates conditions conducive to life.” Regenerative Cultures aim to emulate this insight in how we relate to the human family and all life."
Discussion
Rosalind Marino:
"Let me introduce the concept of Regenerative Economics (Regen). The idea is to account for all the costs and values that are missed by traditional economics. That means both social effects, and externalities like carbon emissions.
If a marsh is drained to allow for a new property development, there is a loss of habitat for important species, there is a release of stored carbon and also a loss of future carbon sequestering and oxygen producing capacity by all of the plants and algae, and then there is a loss of the recreation space which is enjoyed people who live in the area. And all of this before we account for the carbon burned by the construction of the shopping centers and roads and homes that replace the original habitat. These are material and social costs that are paid by local residents, future generations, and the ecosystem as a whole. There is also an economic benefit to the developers, investors, and community members who use the services and spaces of the new development. These benefits and costs both matter, but our current economy only has methods to account for the expenses and value of the development, forgetting the value of the marsh and costs of its loss. Sometimes environmental offsets are bought to compensate, but the specificities are largely unaccounted for. Instead, those socio-ecological losses are termed “externalities” and considered outside the system.
But, you and I both know that these losses are not external to our lives. The loss of a local wetland, or our favorite childhood hike, or the salmon runs that bring life to our local rivers all impact us and our families for generations."
(https://blog.holochain.org/regenerative-investing/)
Examples
Internet of Energy Network (IOEN)
Rosalind Marino:
"Renewable energy is the future. If our civilization has a future, we will have to shift to more sustainable methods for meeting our energy needs. That much is clear. It’s also clear that fossil fuel companies are resistant to this change, and that large solar and wind farms can only be one part of the solution. Small scale local energy production will be a large portion of the global market. Minigrids and Microgrids are emerging as solutions that are more efficient and resilient as they don’t need the massive infrastructure of energy distribution on top of the infrastructure of production. Energy is generated, stored, traded, and used locally.
The pathway to fully clean, tradable energy is not immediate. On the way to full access to clean energy, organizations including large corporations are taking seriously the responsibility to offset their production of carbon emissions. A factory produces a lot of carbon, both from the energy it uses and the industrial processes themselves. They can get their electricity from renewable sources, but depending on where a particular factory is and when they are operating, they might not have access to renewables. Renewable energy generation is subject to location, geography, and access to resources like wind, enough sunshine, and the ability to store electricity.
What if you could invest in the environment, in efforts for climate justice, in carbon markets, and systemic change? What if you could invest in a future that you and your children want to live in? But, just because they are incapable of directly using renewable energy doesn’t mean that they cannot support the use of renewables generally. Environmental Attribute Credits (EACs), including carbon credits and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), help create incentives to invest, support, and use renewable energy.
Currently, large renewable energy farms can sell carbon credits or RECs (depending on the system used), helping corporations offset their carbon emissions. But these are economies of scale. The accounting needed to get government issuance of these carbon credits only works at large scales (a single electrical meter is a lot easier to measure and monitor than many distributed meters). IOEN is providing a way for small scale energy producers who serve their local communities to aggregate their energy production and access global renewable certificate markets.
In order to ensure auditability and to account for distributed energy production by a collection of small holders, data is needed to track energy production. IOEN’s current work with partners in Asia is helping companies and home owners provide two types of data. First, photos of their solar arrays, preferably at the time of installation. Secondly, ongoing readings from their meter, showing the energy that they feed back to their local grid. IOEN’s partners then add satellite data which is used to confirm the installation of solar panels at the sites claimed. All of this data becomes available to regulators who can cross reference each source, ensuring that the meter readings match the expected generation range for the panels.
Aggregating the data of many individual producers allows IOEN to meet the scale requirements to work with government regulators, procuring and then selling the certificates to corporations. As each individual energy producer’s contributions to this larger pool is tracked, they are able to then be compensated directly in relation to the amount of energy they produced.
Key to IOEN’s value in the market is the ability for clients to store the data (meter data, photographs etc.) in private networks hosted on Holochain which provides auditors with assurance that the certificates minted are validated and true. This creates transparency and integrity in the certificate. IOEN’s blockchain solutions that sit on top of that data then allow secondary markets to emerge, along with fractionalised investment opportunities in these renewable assets, creating liquidity. Because transactions are all tracked on the blockchain, and linked to secure data in Holochain, different organizations involved in the assets all can be paid seamlessly and transparently through fractionalised payments. Already small businesses, communities, and large corporations are seeing the value in this approach for a number of energy-related environmental assets."
(https://blog.holochain.org/regenerative-investing/)
Kwaxala - Indigenous Forest Regeneration Cooperative
Rosalind Marino:
"Kwaxala is an indigenous forest regeneration cooperative taking a different approach to nature protection that goes far beyond carbon credits.
Rather than focusing on energy production, they are concerned with the preservation and stewardship of what we already have. Remember that marsh? We agreed that it has a value. And the question is: how can we invest in that value? Kwaxala is making that a possibility.
Most land used for logging, oil drilling and fracking, and other resource extraction is government owned and often in contradiction with recognised Indigenous land rights in the area. Companies own or buy the permits and right to extract resources from that land, without buying the land itself. Kwaxala is working to buy those same rights, but rather than using them for extraction, they are securing the right to protect and regenerate the ecosystems threatened by extraction. This legal guarantee of preservation, in an area previously at genuine threat of extraction, is then used to generate carbon offsets each year which can be sold to corporations meeting their net zero commitments.
This rich dataset then provides detailed provenance for both the particular offsets generated by the protected ecosystems and for the long term investments in the ecosystems themselves so that there is detailed visibility into the health and stewardship of the ecosystem.
Kwaxala offsets not only represent sequestered carbon, but also a wider range of monetized ecoservices such as biodiversity protection and ecosystem preservation alongside positive social outcomes such as Indigenous equity and reconciliation. This enables them to command a premium market price per tonne. Additionally, by enabling capital investment directly into the organization holding the right to regenerate, they provide a new way for investment funds to flow into the asset value of the protected natural ecosystem, generating much needed upfront capital to establish these protected areas and counterbalance the extractive economic pressure to destroy the area.
But how do we ensure that the land is well taken care of? Here Kwaxala is using overlapping datasets to build a picture of the ecosystem and its health. Working with Indigenous land stewards, who are also the principal shareholders in Kwaxala itself, they are developing the metrics needed to monitor and support the wellbeing of the particular ecosystems. For some situations, that might be the water and air quality; for others, it might be the presence of indicator species; for many, it will be the conglomeration of multiple data points, collaborating to tell a story. This rich dataset then provides detailed provenance for both the particular offsets generated by the protected ecosystems and for the long term investments in the ecosystems themselves so that there is detailed visibility into the health and stewardship of the ecosystem.
To collect, manage, and maintain this data — and to share it with community members, government regulators, and investors — they are investigating the development of a distributed platform, built on Holochain. Building on Holochain in this case ensures that control of the data isn’t managed solely by the organization claiming to be protecting the ecosystem, but is rather distributed between all stakeholders. With data provenance baked in, it is also easy to track exactly what agent adds any particular piece of data. This combination of verification and distributed storage of overlapping datasets allows for a high degree of trust to be developed, and holds the organization itself accountable.
...we start to see the potential for a new regenerative economics to be developed. Based not on extraction, but rather the regenerative value of all ecosystem activities."
(https://blog.holochain.org/regenerative-investing/)