This document discusses the concept of regenerative investing which aims to grow wealth and resilience in communities. It outlines three types of investments: degenerative, which deplete resources; generative, which maintain status quo; and regenerative, which create surplus that is reinvested. Regenerative investments consider impacts on financial, natural, social, human, and built capital. Examples provided demonstrate how regenerative approaches address multiple community needs at once through mutually beneficial relationships, in contrast to linear approaches. Key principles for regenerative investing include taking a place-based approach, growing webs of relationship, finding solutions with multiplier effects, and reinvesting surplus.

1. Regenerative
Investing
Presented by Nicholas Mang
Regenesis Group, Principle
Story of Place Institute, Co-Founder
Jessica’s Love Foundation, Executive Director

2. Every
development
project is an
investment into
a community of
place

3. This same perspective applies
whether the development
project is in the arena of:
Land-use Development
Community Development
Economic Development
Education
Philanthropy

4. We are all investors

5. Every investment has impact

6. How do we define
success?
How do we evaluate our
investments?

7. Three Types of Investment
• Degenerative Investments
• Generative Investments
• Regenerative Investments

8. Degenerative Investments
• Are Unsustainable
o Begin to fall apart as soon as the investment is made
o Require on-going investment to stay functional
• Are Wealth Depleting
o Can create short-term profit and benefit through the
extraction of resources from the system, but ultimately
deplete rather than grow the overall wealth of a system

9. Example:

10. Generative Investments
• Save energy, money, and time
o requires some energy in the initial investment but saves
more energy over its life than it took to create
• Have greater longevity
o requires little maintenance or further investment over its
lifetime

11. Example:

12. Regenerative Investments
• Reinvest Surplus
o create surplus return and reinvest it back into the system
• Grow Resiliency
o strengthen webs of mutually benefiting relationship
• Are Wealth Building
o have a net positive effect on the multiple forms of capital
that make up a community system

13. Example:

14. How do we create
more regenerative
investments?

15. Leveraging All Five Capitals
Human Resource
Capital
Natural
Capital
Produced/Built Capital
Financial Capital
Social/Cultural
Capital

16. Financial Capital; Currently the most highly valued form of
capital. Facilitates economic production though it is not itself
productive
Natural Capital; Natural resources, habitat, food producing and
health generating capabilities of the natural ecosystem
Cultural or Social Capital; Social infrastructure and organization,
mutual trust and understanding, shared values and socially
held knowledge, community cohesion and shared stewardship
Produced or Built Capital; physical Infrastructure and assets
generated through human activity that can provide a flow of
goods or services.
Human Resource Capital. The engine for an independent,
healthy, local economy. Education, training, developed
capabilities, skill-base, etc.

17. Example One
Food-for-Trash program (Curitiba, Brazil)

18. Food-For-Trash Program
“[T]he city has been buying surplus food from farmers in the surrounding countryside and trading it
for bags of garbage – six kilos of trash bought a sack of rice, potatoes, beans, and bananas. For a kilo
more, some eggs. The program began in 1989 when an outbreak of leptopirosis, a rat-borne disease,
was noted in the slums. Because the streets are narrow and unpaved, the garbage trucks hired by the
city couldn’t get up to them to collect trash, which was piling up in the favelas. Lerner’s team made a
few quick calculations: how much would it cost to pay the garbage haulers (a private concern) to
collect the trash from the crowded slums? When they had a figure, they determined how much food
they could buy for that sum and then let the slumdwellers collect the trash themselves and bring it
down out of the favelas to the trucks. Along the way, the program manages to support small farmers
who might otherwise have to abandon their fields and migrate to town. (McKibben, 1995, p. 89)
By thinking in networking terms, Curitiban leaders developed a
cheap, simple, but ingeniously designed, solution which addressed
a number of different systemic issues at once, including waste
management and recycling, urban ghettoization, health and
nourishment, the economy of small farmers, and regional migration
flows into the city.

19. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
A Linear Approach to this Problem
would have Led to the Following Impact:

20. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
Curitiba’s Approach Created a
Multiplier Effect in terms of Impact:

21. Example Two
Evergreen Cooperatives (Cleveland, Ohio)

22. Evergreen Cooperatives
“Launched in 2008 by a working group of Cleveland-based institutions (including
the Cleveland Foundation, the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Case Western
Reserve University, and the municipal government), the Evergreen Cooperative
Initiative is working to create living wage jobs in six low-income neighborhoods.
The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative has been designed to cause an economic
breakthrough in Cleveland. Rather than a trickle down strategy, it focuses on
economic inclusion and building a local economy from the ground up; rather than
offering public subsidy to induce corporations to bring what are often low-wage
jobs into the city, the Evergreen strategy is catalyzing new businesses that are
owned by their employees; rather than concentrate on workforce training for
employment opportunities that are largely unavailable to low-skill and low-income
workers, the Evergreen Initiative first creates the jobs, and then recruits and trains
local residents to take them.
The Evergreen Cooperative Initiative creates meaningful green jobs and keeps
precious financial resources within the Greater University Circle neighborhoods.
Worker-owners earn a living wage and build equity in the firms as owners of the
business. ”

23. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
A linear approach that lowered corporate
tax rates to attract jobs would have:

24. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
A linear approach that invested in work-
force training alone would have:

25. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
Evergreen’s Approach led to:

26. Example Three
Hubbell Trading Post (Ganado, Arizona, USA)

27. Hubbell Trading Post
At the Hubbell Trading Post in northern Arizona, Regenesis was asked to create a
design for redeveloping the historic farm. The original National Park Service
program called for basic infrastructure as a basis for recruiting a local farmer to
lease the farm. However, given both the ecological context (the harsh climate
making conventional farming marginal) and the cultural context (a Native
American community with agricultural traditions incompatible with the National
Park Service model), it became quickly apparent that the farm would need to be
re-imagined.
The result was a farm conceived as a potentiator of existing community
initiatives, including a program for growing traditional Navajo foods to combat
diabetes, a 4H program for working with youth to bring back the endangered
variety of sheep traditionally raised by the Navajo, and programs to revitalize the
sheepherding way of life. The farm is organized to grow perennial pasture, with
sheep grazing used as a tool for managing and improving soils. Thus, the farm
becomes a learning center for teaching how to engage in traditional lifeways
while using new methods that heal local grasslands rather than depleting them.

28. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
Original Linear Approach

29. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
Regenesis’s Approach

30. Example Four
Playa Viva (Juluchuca, Mexico)

31. Playa Viva
“Among resort projects, Playa Viva is unique in that it’s focused on building
relationships with the community, to learn from them, and use their knowledge
to develop a better project. It’s a slow process, but one that demonstrates a deep
commitment to the sustainability of whole communities.”•
- Laura Valdez Kurl, author of Ecohabitat: Experiences in Sustainability
“Imagine if every ‘green’ hotel in the U.S. was actively working to revitalize inner
city neighborhoods, developing community gardens so low-income people had
access to healthy food, supporting alternatives to incineration, and supporting
local small businesses. That’s what Playa Viva is doing on the beach in Mexico,
that’s what makes for a truly sustainable resort and that’s what travel with ethics
is all about.”•
- David Leventhal, eco-resort owner

32. Financial Capital
Built Capital
Natural Capital
Human Capital
Social Capital
Playa Viva’s Approach

33. Where does this leave us?

34. Some Key Principles
• Develop a Place-Sourced Approach
Deep understanding of the distinctive assets and webs of relationship
within a place helps to source creative solutions that uniquely meet the
particular needs and potentials of that community
• Grow webs of mutually beneficial relationship
In Permaculture, this is called a guild – a small community of organisms
that through systemic reciprocal exchange help grow the conditions for
each others’ well-being.
• Look for Solution Multipliers
Identify single investments/actions that can contribute to the growth of
multiple capitals. This requires seeing beyond our silos.
• Grow and Reinvest Surplus
Create systems that are abundant and reinvest the abundance rather
than hoarding it for ourselves.