We live in a degenerative economy. Nearly every product, service, company and technology we use and consume in our daily lives is destroying the systems upon which our wealth and prosperity has been built – and with it, the economy itself. We've hit the systemic limits of growth on a planet with finite resources. Business as usual, our degenerative economy, is propelling us towards degrowth. Every day that we continue on this path the planet heats up. And every day the planet heats up, our economies cool down—a mere 1-degree Celsius rise in global temperature is forecast to incinerate 12% of global GDP. That’s $13trn today
The future of growth hinges on regeneration. Regenerative technologies generate more resources than they consume, expand economic capacity, and radically improve the quality of our lives. Call it having your cake and eating it too. Regenerative technologies create the conditions necessary for infinite growth and prosperity on a finite planet.
An economy built on regeneration enriches our lives – nourishing the very systems that sustain us, rather than draining the last drops from a dwindling well. It’s a choice between flourishing with the earth or scraping by as it withers. Every dollar not actively invested in regenerative technologies is a dollar spent perpetuating depletion, accelerating environmental collapse, and deepening our reliance on dwindling resources. It’s a choice between funding a future of abundance or fueling a legacy of loss.
For too long, we’ve operated under the assumption that innovations in efficiency and market mechanisms could overcome any natural constraints. But the Earth’s resources—its energy, minerals, and ecosystems—are finite. We’ve treated these resources as though they were endless, failing to recognize that our economic system is just a subsystem of the larger biosphere. As we deplete these resources, we’re hitting diminishing returns on the energy and materials that our economy depends on.
There is no doubt we will hit ecological and resource limits, leading to an existential crisis.
Fossil fuels provided an unprecedented energy surplus, enabling a century of rapid economic expansion. But now, the easy-to-access energy is gone, and what remains is increasingly costly and difficult to extract. This rising cost of energy is not just a drag on growth; it’s a systemic risk to the global economy. Climate change only magnifies this risk. The burning of fossil fuels, which has powered our economic expansion, is also destabilizing the very systems we depend on. Extreme weather, rising sea levels, and the loss of biodiversity are already disrupting supply chains, reducing agricultural yields, and increasing the costs of doing business. These aren’t just environmental issues—they’re economic ones. And they’re revealing the fragility of a system built on the assumption of perpetual extraction.
But if our system is ultimately tethered to a dwindling source of energy and resources, why do GDP figures paint a picture of continued economic growth? A closer look reveals that energy growth rates have been declining for several decades, while at the same time, debts have skyrocketed. This means that as the growth is increasingly reliant on ever-larger volumes of credit to maintain its dependency to increasingly expensive fuels. Ever-increasing credit volumes only creates the illusion of economic prosperity, while the underlying energy base shrinks. The consequences of this dissonance aren’t siloed into our economies, either – an overreliance on debt poses significant risks to geopolitical and social stability.
So, where does this leave us? Given these economic stakes, it's clear that our current approach is not enough. The concept of decoupling—separating economic growth from the consumption of finite resources—offers a potential way forward. But relative decoupling alone falls short. It’s not enough to simply slow the rate at which we’re depleting resources. The more we push the limits, the more we’re setting ourselves up for a hard landing when those resources run out or become too expensive to access. True progress requires a fundamentally different approach: regeneration.
Decoupling without regeneration is merely a stopgap, a way to delay the inevitable. To genuinely secure long-term growth, we must go beyond minimizing harm; we must actively repair and replenish the natural systems that sustain our economies. Regeneration doesn’t just mitigate damage—it transforms the very foundation of our economic model, creating the conditions for growth that are both durable and restorative.
Without regeneration, decoupling remains an empty promise because continued growth in a resource-depleting system is a contradiction. Regenerative practices—whether in agriculture, energy, or industry—are the tools that allow us to break the link between growth and resource depletion.
And let’s be clear: failing to adopt a regenerative approach doesn’t just mean missing out on potential benefits—it means we’re actively moving in the wrong direction. Even if we manage to slow down the rate of environmental degradation, if we’re not regenerating, we’re still degenerating. The economic impacts of climate change make this starkly evident.
The bottom line is this: our current economic model is running out of runway.
We must relentlessly seek out and scale technologies that operate on a radically different premise. By utilizing inputs that can be renewed or regenerated, these technologies not only avoid escalating costs and the inevitable decline in marginal productivity but are also designed to create more than they consume—to restore and expand. This philosophy underpins their ability to deliver superlinear returns, and to contribute more than they consume.
By leveraging and enhancing natural cycles, regenerative technologies don't merely patch up existing problems but create new pathways for abundance. As they demonstrate their ecological benefits and economic superiority, they attract more investment and innovation, which accelerates their development and deployment. This creates a virtuous cycle where economic and environmental benefits mutually reinforce each other, ensuring that every dollar invested in the early stages multiplies in impact. This prosperity then feeds back into the system, catalyzing further growth and improvement, reducing costs, and broadening the potential applications of the technology. It’s a positive feedback loop that traditional sustainable technologies, focused solely on efficiency, simply cannot replicate.
At ReGen, we’re continuously driven by a guiding question: “What is a regenerative opportunity of sufficient scale to be meaningful for an investment?”
This question isn't just procedural; it’s at the heart of using our investment philosophy as a critical lens for assessing technologies. It forces us to examine whether a potential investment can genuinely improve our ecosystems and our planet while still offering the financial viability of a venture investment.
Moreover, this approach is counterpositioning traditional climate and clean-tech investment strategies, which predominantly focus on reducing harm and improving efficiency within the current framework. While such measures are stepping stones in the right direction to transition to a better future, they still operate within a conventional model that often confronts diminishing returns and scarcity, where pushing the envelope on existing resources and technologies yields progressively smaller gains. This scarcity mindset limits the scope for innovation, and fails to break us out of the negative cycle between degrading planet and economy.
A focus on disruptive, step-change technologies over incremental innovation has it’s roots in the nascent years of venture capital, where the focus was more on identifying revolutionary or transformative opportunities (think semiconductor chips, the computer revolution) than on finding an incrementally better "software solution" for existing problems. Yet, despite our industry's origins in taking bold leaps, many players remain hesitant to embrace the risks essential for genuine innovation, much less to lead investment rounds in groundbreaking fields.
This widespread reticence starkly contradicts the very purpose of venture capital, which is designed to propel forward-thinking ideas and transformative technologies. It is a privilege to serve as stewards of capital entrusted with the risk tolerance required to invest in our collective future. The prevailing caution in today's landscape significantly undermines the core mission of venture capital—to champion innovations that drive substantial progress and reshape industries. This caution not only hampers the potential for transformative change but also deviates from the very spirit of venture capital, which is to boldly forge ahead where others may hesitate.
We’re not afraid to yell from the rooftops that the future of growth depends on regeneration. If our economic activities are not contributing to the renewal of the natural systems we rely on, they are contributing to their decline. There’s no middle ground here. The choice is between a regenerative economy that fosters long-term, compounding growth, or a degenerative one that slowly (then quickly, all at once) self-destructs. It’s a choice between regrowth and prosperity or degrowth and destruction.
Which one will you choose?
We completely agree with your analysis of the problem and regenerative approach for a viable solution. At Wild Coast Biologics, we are committed to "Saving our Soil" and believe that AI and Biology can play a big role in transitioning agriculture to regenerative practices over the next 30 years.
Keep leading the charge!
Brian Harris, Founder
Wild Coast Biologics Inc
brian@wildcoastbiologics.com