The Age Of Regeneration Has Begun
Can you feel it in the air?
Across industries and communities, people are beginning to understand that sustainability was never the destination. It was a bridge.
There is now a shift in the way heirs view their inheritance. It is no longer simply about getting a return; now, they are looking for a purpose.
It’s become about Regenerative Finance (ReFi), an approach that uses money and investments to go beyond mere sustainability. Unlike “traditional” green finance or ESG, it actively seeks to renew and restore ecological, cultural and social systems.
This type of finance is based on several main principles. It recognises the interconnectedness of world economies, societies and the environment. Investment is for the longer term with an eye to regenerating systems such as regenerative agriculture and community-based renewables. It also aims to restore such things as biodiversity, soil health and communities, as opposed to traditional finance’s approach of extracting profits and resources and putting back as little as required to continue for profitability. Often, it blends philanthropic capital with more commercial investments to deliver regenerative projects and is not shy of using new technology to provide better outcomes, including the use of blockchain to tokenise carbon or biodiversity credits.
Capgemini’s 2025 report notes there are distinct expectations from the next generation of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs). They have been brought up in an almost completely digital world, and they are more focused on values for themselves, others and the planet and as a consequence are very much aware of the value of a regenerative approach to using their inheritance.
Ernst and Young report that there is a risk of wealth managers losing the heirs of their current clients if they do not start using impact-first strategies. Rather like aristocratic owners of massive estates in Britain, heirs consider themselves to be custodians and stewards of what they inherit, rather than the owners.
Unfortunately, wealth managers face a similar problem to “green washing” in that it can be difficult to measure the regenerative value created by an investment. For example, how can you assess whether soil health has increased due to an investment or if it would have improved anyway? The danger then becomes paying lip service to ReFi and not really contributing meaningfully to regeneration and slipping into “impact-washing”.
Around the world, a number of projects are taking place with the aim of using finance regeneratively. This is accomplished through a variety of vehicles, including green bonds, impact funds, blended finance and regenerative agricultural finance. Three examples of this are regenerative agriculture, blue finance and green finance.
In the UK, the government, through the ADM UK Regenerative Agriculture Programme, pays farmers for each hectare where they use regenerative agriculture. “Green premiums” are paid for farmers when they practise conservation tillage, cover cropping, and nutrient management. As an example, the programme pays farmers up to £47 per hectare for oilseed rape contracts.
In its “Financing for Regenerative Agriculture” Report (2024), the Rockefeller Foundation showed ways for investors to get involved with regenerative agriculture and the financial instruments that would help them. The report goes on to suggest that USD $250–430 billion per year would be needed for 10 years for global agricultural systems to switch to regenerative agriculture. However, Bain Global believes that global agricultural systems would need significantly more investment and talks about $1.1 trillion per year for five years to sustain a transition to using ReFi.
The World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) reports that the French impact firm Mirova is investing large amounts of capital into regenerative agriculture to restore ecosystems and support rural communities. Mirova has more than €30 billion in assets. Its goal is to generate positive environmental and social impact by using new investment strategies.
Mainstream asset manager T. Rowe Price created an emerging-markets blue bond strategy for capital for the sustainable blue economy, which includes marine conservation, coastal resilience, and fisheries.
In 2025, New York State invested $3.4 billion in water infrastructure using eleven Green Innovation Grant Program projects managing more than 49 million gallons of annual stormwater, covering water quality and nature-based urban resilience. The risk with a publicly financed investment is that it could be prone to government budgets that cut further funding and reduce the return on investment.
The Peatland Code, the first verified UK peatland blended-finance project, is backed by the UK government as a standard for enabling the sale of high-integrity peatland carbon credits with management over the long term, 30–100 years. The UK peatland stores more carbon than all the forests in the UK. However, the peatlands are currently degraded and release CO₂, rather than storing it. Therefore, restoration of the peatlands would be a significant win for sustainability. The Peatland Code ensures that investors can buy into offsetting emissions or invest in the climate-positive peatland restoration project.
In the USA, the Patagonia Purpose Trust was formed in September 2022, when the company founder, Yvon Chouinard and his family transferred ownership of the company so that all profits go toward environmental causes. The business was valued at $3 billion when it was transferred and continues to operate as a business, but any profits not reinvested in the business go towards climate action, nature protection, biodiversity, and community causes.
Measurement is probably the most difficult issue to overcome. Particularly if the investment is for the long term. gap: distinguishing greenwashing from true regenerative outcomes.
Regenerative return on investment is generally long-term, and it is not usually possible to pin it to what is currently seen as the more normal quarterly reporting cycle. This longer-term reporting cycle can mean that knowing whether the investment is paying for itself and improving the environment, culture, or society is impossible for years.
The consequence of the measurement issue and the long-term timeframes involved means that wealth managers, investors and heirs are much more cautious before they invest. However, heirs face added pressure from friends and family to remain traditional and invest in the better-known investment vehicles.
The next generation of heirs are market movers. Whatever they want to invest in will prompt wealth managers and institutions to change strategies. And canny firms will be recognising this and dipping their toes into regenerative finance more and more, so that when heirs make their voice heard and demand the use of regenerative finance, the firms will be ready.
It is clear that heirs will expect the future to involve investment with meaning, not just for returns but for regeneration.