Regenerative Finance & Economy represents a transformative approach to economic systems that goes beyond sustainability to actively restore and enhance ecological and social health. Unlike conventional finance that treats nature and communities as externalities to be exploited, regenerative economics aligns financial incentives with the renewal of living systems — channeling capital toward activities that rebuild soil, regenerate ecosystems, strengthen communities, and create conditions for life to flourish. This paradigm draws from indigenous economics, ecological economics, and systems thinking to reimagine money itself as a tool for collective thriving.
The intellectual foundations of regenerative finance trace to pioneers like E.F. Schumacher ("Small Is Beautiful"), Herman Daly (ecological economics), and more recently John Fullerton, whose "Regenerative Capitalism" framework articulates eight principles for economic vitality aligned with living systems. The movement gained momentum through the convergence of impact investing, the B Corp movement, community development finance, and the emergence of blockchain-based "ReFi" (Regenerative Finance) protocols. Organizations like RSF Social Finance, Slow Money, and the Global Alliance for Banking on Values have demonstrated that finance can serve regenerative purposes at scale.
The ReFi movement, emerging around 2021, applies Web3 technologies to regenerative goals — using tokenization, DAOs, and programmable money to fund reforestation, carbon sequestration, and community resilience. Projects like Regen Network, Toucan Protocol, and KlimaDAO have pioneered on-chain carbon markets and natural capital accounting. Meanwhile, traditional finance is slowly incorporating regenerative principles through frameworks like the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Finance and the emergence of "nature-positive" investment criteria. The field continues to evolve toward what some call a "Regenerative Renaissance" — a fundamental reorientation of economic activity toward planetary and social regeneration.