Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast features the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Hosted by Koen van Seijen.
Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food
200 Emma Chow in conversation with Koen van Seijen - Regenerating ourselves before working on regenerative agriculture and food
The 200th of this podcast sees Koen van Seijen in conversation with Emma Chow, former head of food at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
Emma Chow, former head of food at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, she's back on the podcast to talk about her journey, her burnout, coming back from the Amazon to London and re-engaging with the food space. In a second part of the interview, though, Emma and Koen switch mics with Emma becoming the host and asking Koen about his lessons learned over the past 200 episodes.
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Thank you so much for listening and for clicking on this link. This is the 200th episode of this podcast. I never imagined in my life we would get here. And I'm pretty sure we will take it to another 200, 400, whatever number comes up. If you're new, welcome. There are many episodes to listen from. Go to the website and you can search for keywords as well. If you are a regular listener, thank you so much for listening, for your support, for sharing, for getting the message out, for sharing it with your friends and for being active in the space I know many of you are active in the space listening to this so for this episode it's a very special one it's a very special ride it has been a very special ride we have Emma Chow back on the podcast to talk about her journey her burnout coming back from the Amazon to London and re-engaging with the food space and of course we discuss where the podcast is where the podcast is going what we've seen over the last years over the last six years actually and where do we think this is going and let me know what you think think what the podcast has brought you, where you're listening. We're always happy to hear from you. This can be quite a lonely profession as we are often with a laptop and a microphone and interviewing over the internet. So let us know where you're listening, how this podcast has helped you. We love to hear from you. And now without further ado, the 200th episode. Enjoy. This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food podcast, investing as if the planet mattered, where we talk to the pioneers in the regenerative food and agriculture space to learn more on how to put our money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Why my focus on soil and regeneration? Because so many of the pressing issues we face today have their roots in how we treat our land and our sea, grow our food, what we eat, wear and consume. And it's Thank you. If our work created value for you and if you have the means and only if you have the means, consider joining us. Find out more on gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag. That is gumroad.com slash investing in regen ag or find the link below. So welcome to a very special episode, the 200th of this podcast, which I never could have imagined when we started hanging out and having conversations around the role of money in regeneration. And I couldn't have wished for a better co-pilot on this episode, former head of food, I think a food program, you can correct me later, what exactly your role was at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation. And she left, we actually had the last interview, your last interview was on this podcast in February of this year, so 2022. We're recording this on World Soil Day, the 5th of December, and it will probably be out early January. And so I'm very much looking forward to checking in with Emma, Emma Chow, I haven't mentioned your name yet, to see where your journey is leading you. And of course, to check in on the podcast, where we're at, where we're going, and what we've learned so far. So welcome this morning. And thank you so much for taking the time to join us on the podcast again.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you so much for having me. It's such an especially with the 200th episode amazing and feels so full circle for me because as you mentioned that was my last media piece back in February and then I took a big break and it's only more recently that I've landed back in London and like re-immersed myself into the food world and we've gotten to reconnect so it's it feels all very very right and timely
SPEAKER_00:absolutely and just let's let's back that break a bit. I mean, you took some time off and not just like, oh, I went a week to a cottage somewhere in Wales, which is amazing, but you did a slightly different break. Because you wrote a really nice LinkedIn post on that or LinkedIn article, I think they call it. Anyway, a nice post on LinkedIn, which I will link below as well, about your journey. Can you share a bit what made you decide to go to the Amazon? And then of course, we'll talk a bit about what you learned there, what you brought back, not only cacao and plant medicine but what you brought back in terms of experiences and lessons learned and what was that deep dive for you into literally the jungle
SPEAKER_01:yeah gosh it was so much and I'm happy to share as far as we want to go today but to answer the first part of what made me take this break because as you're alluding to it wasn't just one or two weeks it was six months where I gave myself permission to say this is My only mission is to regenerate myself. And this time last year, October, November of last year, I was in the depths of acknowledging that I was fully burnt out and having to step away from work and confront the truth, which was very confronting for me at the time, that I was degenerating myself while working towards regenerative futures, while working on the food initiative at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and then all of my work before that, that was always centered around working for nature. So I had to confront that and say, okay, I actually need to prioritize me. And what does it mean for me to regenerate myself? Because I can't do any good work for the world if I don't take care of myself. And I'd been wanting to go to the Amazon since I'd been fortunate to have a conversation with Alex Atala, like an Instagram live a couple of years ago. And he was speaking about going into the Amazon, learning from these different tribes in Brazil and speaking about biodiversity of the different fruits and herbs and everything that he was discovering and then bringing it back into his restaurants. And since then, I was like, oh, the Amazon. And then I just felt this pull to Peru. And when it comes to travel, I always trust my intuition. And that's really what guided me on this whole journey. So it was in June that I started my travel journey. levels from my home country of Canada, where I was before that, to Peru. And yeah, I went and I lived in the Amazon for a couple of weeks and got to be opened up to a whole other world, many worlds, living with Indigenous people and being in relationship with nature in such a different way and discovering the healing potential of plants and our food
SPEAKER_00:and is it something you recommend we all do in a sense we it's not a common friend yet but i think it will become but somebody mentioned after spending a lot of time with indigenous tribes that they said something and for sure i'm butchering the quote um like as long as we keep meeting on zoom and then like we'll never get regeneration like as long which is good it connects we we are online in general of course it's not As long as we keep meeting in these very concrete buildings and connect online, we'll never get the true meaning of regeneration. Thus, should we all go to somewhere and really try to reconnect to nature? Is that something you're advocating for now? Or would you say it's so personal, like it really depends where you're at? Or is it every human being, especially people working in the regenerative food space or regeneration in general, they need something like this because it just opens up a whole new world? or worlds, as you said.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that quote that you were just sharing now. I think that...
SPEAKER_00:Fernando will share the proper one when you connect.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, amazing. I think that this conversation right now, it's enabled by technologies online and is definitely a tool that we don't want to push away. And at the same time, when it comes to reconnecting with nature, which I think is at the core of everything, and it's really... a process of remembering that we too are part of nature. We are not separate from nature. We only remember that through re-immersing in and with nature. And it doesn't need to look like going and living with an indigenous tribe per se. It doesn't need to be going off to the Amazon. That was something I learned as part of my journey. It was like, wow, I've gone to all these far off exotic lands to have this novel experience in the sense of being in a completely different environment. And now my work is to come back to England. I'm half British. So part of my work now is to reconnect with my ancestral lineage. And I'm working with plants to do art projects, for instance. And part of that motivation is to learn about native plants here, which I've never thought to do. And I've been living in England for almost five years. So I think no matter where we are in the world.
SPEAKER_00:I thought you were going to say like 25 years. No, five is still I mean, fair enough. I mean, you worked a lot. You worked probably too much. But most of my time
SPEAKER_01:has been spent on a computer.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, on a computer in a square box. Talking about food and talking about things. But okay, so you're on a journey to reconnect to dead things of nature, which is not as wild, maybe. Maybe it is, as the Amazon.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and you can find that wildness of nature and the incredible elegant complexity that nature is in any pocket. Like I'm here in London now and I will go to the marshes near Olympic Park and like there's wild nature there. And yes, it's not massive and expensive like the Amazon, but I can still go and walk into nature and practice these practices, like asking for permission to walk down the path, like noticing the personality of the forest, like paying attention. And that in itself is building our senses to be able to receive information from nature, which we have essentially numbed when we're keeping ourselves separate and behind computers and only using some of our senses.
SPEAKER_00:And how do you find now being back? And I I encourage everybody to read the post you wrote, which I will link below or which I will link in the show notes. Being back in London, which is a big concrete city with some wild pieces, obviously left and right. How do you prevent yourself from not becoming or not falling into the trap of like nature? I wouldn't say nature is everything, but sounding too naive or something. We have to just reconnect to nature and we're fine. How do you make sure we bridge that to the harsh world of corporates that you work in? a part of or you were semi part of because you had of course an interesting role at the foundation like how do you bridge that to if we just look at nature everything will be fine we just have to reconnect and then it's okay how do we make sure we connect that or we build that bridge to people that are not saying still stuck in the concrete boxes but are maybe a bit too far away from nature to see that or to feel that or to reconnect and we just push it in the corner of okay She went to the Amazon. She came back. Okay. Nature is very important now. That's fine. But I will just continue to do my day-to-day stuff. How do we make sure we connect to that and not be pushed away as naive and let's just get on with day-to-day work. And this is not, this is fine for the weekends or something.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. That's the hard part, isn't it? That's the hard part. I'm not saying I'm asking easy questions. I felt that tension for sure. Just in these past couple of months of being back in London, being like, okay, How do I want to reenter this space? But one word that you spoke just now, bridge, is what kept coming to me when I was traveling. Like it was just this message that kept coming to me. Like I'm meant to be a bridge between these worlds. And the key here is to bring things in a relatable package, right? Because you can have the same kind of nugget, the same golden gift inside, but you can wrap it in many different ways. So I think that's the key here. is like understanding the audience and understanding where people are at and meeting them where they are and never coming in to preach and tell people what to do. And I think that's universal, especially in the pathway to regeneration or guilt or shame what's been done. But I'm a big believer in this principle of experience first and knowledge second. And rather than telling, give people the opportunity to experience it firsthand and personalize and internalize it for themselves. So I think it's an opportunity to, in different ways, be reconnected with food and nature. And maybe that's by going to a restaurant here in London, like Silo, a place that creates really incredible experiences and through the plate of food, you can be introduced to these worlds and it's always a journey. So it's all about like, how do you crack open the door and then through your firsthand experience, learn something, internalize it, and then have some curiosity to experience something more. And that's where the momentum can build, I think.
SPEAKER_00:And where are you at now? Like, what, what are you, what are the fun of that bridge or the bridges, probably there are multiple, you're building or where is your, not that you have to build a bridge this year or next year, but what are you currently working on or thinking of or playing with in terms of bridge building? What are pieces you're currently, which are currently in development, let's say?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Could be design, could be already fundamental pieces, but let's say. Yeah. So it's
SPEAKER_01:interesting because obviously I took this break as a reset and And I told myself,
SPEAKER_00:I don't necessarily- So I'm laughing because there's like a little girl walking around here in the co-working space. I'm recording, sorry, audience. We might cut this out, we might not. But there's a bit of background noise, which is perfectly fine in a big concrete building.
SPEAKER_01:And I said to myself, I might not necessarily come back into food and work professionally. And then there was this desire that emerged to come and work in food space still, but in a different way. And really picking up where I left off in terms of food design. And you just mentioned it, the last report, what we spoke about on the last podcast that we recorded together was a big food redesign that the Ellen McCarthy Foundation produced and my team worked on. And I really wanted to pick up there and take it further. And everything keeps collapsing back to this central pillar around mindset, shift, and education. And they're really intangible components that I've always believed and continue to believe are paramount. And so I'm currently exploring these ideas around creating immersions, immersive experiences that can come in different formats to meet people where they're at and invite them in to shift their mindset, to really move from our classic society sustainability of do less harm towards, oh, we can go beyond net zero goals and actually get to regeneration. And what does that actually taste like, look like, feel like, smell like? How do I receive that through my senses to internalize that wisdom that sits within all of us? And then how do you take that back into your organization to start to influence your day-to-day decision-making, your strategy, your product innovation schemes, where you're allocating your data, And that's really where I'm at out of these past couple months that I've treated as an exploration phase since landing back in London. And now it's really about building those ideas into coherent experiences and offerings that I can invite organizations and individuals into as I enter the new year.
SPEAKER_00:You mentioned a number of times the different senses and of course how food touches on most of them and if not all, just trying to count them. And how that could be that entry point into or that first very low risk, low barrier, like just taste something else in a different experience, a different setting. And I think we keep hitting that as well with the podcast that unless we also change the way of investing or the way money works, or the way we put money to work, probably it's about the way money works, maybe a bit ambitious, but we're still going to hit the same limits of certain models, the same limits of certain things. And I keep thinking that people get really hooked on regen ag and food because they see a documentary or they, they heard a podcast somewhere, maybe ours, maybe others. Ours is quite niche, but, or they read a book or whatever and, or a movie. And then they sort of think, oh, if we just switch this, then it's okay. If we just switch a few practices on the field, we're fine. And I'm, I know most people go down the rabbit hole eventually, but it would be nice to speed it up or to, to help them through that realization. Like it requires other pieces. It requires a much deeper transformation and food and ag is a really good starting point, but it doesn't mean it ends there. And it's not just swapping a few practices and we'll all be safe. And, and so I'm wondering what it needs there as well. And of course we, we try to do our part and we try to feature people that take this discussion much deeper because I think that's our role and not just to talk about the latest fund and their structure. Of course, if their structure is innovative, we should. But also what does it mean to be a regenerative investor or what does a regenerative investment actually look like? What is that even? Or what kind of questions should we ask? What are the conditions? And I'm wondering if we should take investors, especially new ones in this space, on these journeys as well to expose them how powerful, but also complex and complicated regeneration is and not just let them learn from a book, a documentary or a podcast or something written or a great report but it needs to be out in the field it needs to be out in the forest it needs to be out in among the things you try to put money to work so I think there's a huge space there we'll continue the conversations for sure also offline like how to not make people click but really experience regeneration and the potential you need to be away from this concrete cube and a laptop and you need to be somewhere but then needs to be very curated and making sure it switches on. It clicks the right buttons. And of course, it's different for every person. So what are you thinking about these experiences? What's your first very corporate target group? What are you going to say? Let's do chefs or let's do investors or let's do entrepreneurs or let's mix them all together and make sure that works, which maybe is powerful but also tricky.
SPEAKER_01:Well, Initially, with these first prototypes, what I'm drawn to most is that is exactly the community you just mentioned around investors and funders, because through my experience these past years working primarily with businesses and a lot of really large food companies, seeing that ultimately those investors and funding mechanisms have such deep influence. And unless you get those guys on board, it's really hard to just focus on companies or just focus on policy. So I don't have tons of experience working with that specific group, which is interesting for me. Oh, I'm being drawn to it. So I'm interested to work closer with them and then down the line, be able to bring together, similar to how I did in my last role, like convening more diverse audiences, because there's a lot of power in that and limited space where we're actually able to bring together very thoughtfully curated groups that include the investors and the startups and the big companies and the chefs who have so much knowledge and creative ideas. So I think there's a lot of potential down the road, but at the moment, I'm primarily focusing on the investing funding community.
SPEAKER_00:Which is interesting because you could argue that it's entrepreneurs first and then the money follows or it's money first and then the entrepreneurs follow so do you know why you're drawn to let's say the investor part of this this ecosystem
SPEAKER_01:yeah part of it is thinking about where do we put our energy you know invest our own time and energy and where's the greatest return and so when I when I look from afar and have kind of noticed trends over the past years and I'm sure you know much more deeply than me in terms of how much money is now flowing into the future of food. And that can include food tech and it can include region ag and things like that. But there's a lot of money moving into these spaces and often under following what I would call some myths and seeing things as silver bullets. Okay, I'm taking notes. That I think are part of the solution, but there is no silver bullet when it comes to creating a better food system. We need to lean into the complexity. So I think about how do we catch them early on in the journey, in their own learning journey, to have a big influence, short and long term, on where money is flowing. And at the same time, for sure, there's a lot, I really believe in the power of disruptors in terms of those startups to create and expand new markets and pull along the bigger companies to and get money to be driving in a certain direction. Yeah,
SPEAKER_00:hopefully that makes sense. Yeah, no, the lever. I mean, one of the reasons we focus on that space because the money technically can only be spent once or put to work once, but of course it's not always the case, but it's a very powerful tool and we have to get a lot better, we meaning the sector, a lot better at using it and at least speak the language and engaging with it because otherwise we get the same structures and principles and power dynamics that have created a lot of this mess and we trying to apply that to regeneration is as we see constantly just a very difficult like it's fitting what is it a square into a round hole like it doesn't work and and we try desperately to do it sometimes and then we we run against issues and so we better change the way we put to work which means we have to change the mindset or change or engage with with the people that are putting money to work to to think differently and to engage in a much larger conversation and so I fully agree it's a long game but at the same time then I really hope that if we train all these investors and expose them and they fully grasp right there in their mind what regeneration is to them that there are also places to put it to work because otherwise we create this whole hungry group of investors that is ready to embrace the complexity but I think it's a symbiotic relationship at the entrepreneurs that they interact with and the funds and the early early stage people will connect or will move with the investor as well if we've seen it with steward ownership the more it's on the table the more people are connecting about it the more people are talking about it even they end up not doing a deal in a certain way the next time they might and it's a constant education about power dynamics and about what money actually can do or shouldn't do that is very very interesting and complex and keeps us busy for 200 episodes and probably another 400 500 whatever the number will be So it's a very interesting first angle. But I would have imagined maybe you started with food companies or with chefs coming out of the Ellen MacArthur ecosystem. And also because of large food companies you worked with, they are, of course, they are controlled by investors, but the really, really large ones, not necessarily institutional players, which are you targeting? Are you thinking about getting some decision makers of those larger players involved as as well, or is that a bridge too far and maybe version two or three?
SPEAKER_01:Maybe version two or three. At this point. At this point for me. I think there's a really important role for engaging. It's just a question of, does it need to be me?
SPEAKER_00:And is it fun? And is it your, yeah, what's the potential return there? Yeah, and I'm just
SPEAKER_01:following where I'm feeling the energy. Like, where is the energy? Where is synchronicity happening? Where is something feeling forced versus where is it flowing? And I'm following where it feels like it's flowing and trusting. Like, that's the natural intelligence of where something is supposed to be created and where something is meant to emerge. And I can't predict right now, following that sort of design principle, exactly how this maybe, you know, a few months from now, the first version will emerge and it will involve some of these big companies. But I don't know. I'm still... I'm still in the shaping
SPEAKER_00:zone. How difficult is it to let it emerge coming out of, I'm forgetting which large consultancy you were before. I was at Deloitte. Deloitte, yeah. When I said it, I remembered. And the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, which I don't know when you joined, but I think became quite a large institutional institution, basically. And now you're basically, I don't really know where this is going and I will let it emerge and follow the energy and the flow. How difficult is that for you to say that and actually do it?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, it has been so challenging. Like it's easy for me when I'm on my break and I'm, and I'm traveling and I trust my intuition and everything's great. And then I come back and it's been, it's been rocky. It's been times of having to really check myself because I go into my own default modes, which as you say, I was in corporate consulting in my early career. So that ingrained in me, this like drive, drive, go, go, go. But essentially it's an extractive model for myself and everyone I'm working around. And it's a applying the same level of mind and brain that created these issues that we're trying to solve. And it was Einstein who said, we can't solve this problem from the same level of the mind that created them. So it's a process for me, an unlearning of old ways and a relearning of new ways. So it's a daily check-in. And often I fall off the track and I have to get myself back on. And part of it is coming back to this place like it's okay not to know it's okay to let things release control it's really a process of releasing control and i and i always come back to nature as well um because Nature has this intelligence that's very unpredictable. And if you look at just one component of it, like a tree falling or a branch falling, you might think, oh, that's bad. It's like death or devastation or something that's bad. But actually, if you zoom out and you see the bigger picture, it all has some sort of purpose. Like it's going to decompose and return nutrients to the soil to allow more life to come. So it's also been a big process of realizing that regeneration is is a death practice. Regeneration is letting something, parts of my old ways, my old self, to die, to let things reemerge. It's to, yeah, this piece around creating the blank space to let creation come through is a new thing for me, newer in the past year. So I'm still learning.
SPEAKER_00:Probably never done as well.
SPEAKER_01:Never done, no.
SPEAKER_00:And so what are you, no, I think I want to double click on that death piece. Is that one of the big myths or, and then connected to that, the silver bullets you mentioned before, like people fall into the trap of, okay, if we only do this, we'll be fine. Or if we just change this and just replace this, if we just swap this, if we, et cetera, et cetera, like the plastic straw focus and some other things. Like what do you see now back in London and people running around getting super excited but food and egg and then running after these silver bullets. Is there an underlying piece? And we talked about it with Charles Eisenstein on the death piece that we don't discuss or the cycle and the regeneration piece. Is that the underlying issue, the elephant in the room, let's say we don't want to confront or do you see other big ones we don't want to touch? And that's why we go for the silver bullets and the shiny things that look really sustainable but end up not being so.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I think in our Western society, that's a piece that's underlying everything that goes way beyond food. This aversion to death, right? It's like this attachment to kind of like sun energy, bright life, everything's good. And so the prospect of letting something crumble and fall is so terrifying. And it's this clinging on and attachment. to what was, and we're at this very, to me, exciting and scary moment of how do we really wind down that old system, bring in that moratorium. With grace and without too much heavy crumbling. Yeah, so it can't just be this, that's get rid of the old and bring in the new. Like, no, there's this transition. And how do we guide that while also building up a radically different, new tomorrow? And that takes this process of surrendering to death and releasing control. And it's amazing. Like I'm fascinated in terms of the human species and where we've gotten to in terms of like exercising control as much as we can to keep everything alive. And that can prevent us from allowing the natural cycles of birth, maintenance, death, renewal, to continue I realized for me I had tried to continue a way of being beyond the state that I was the moment that I was meant to and that's why the burnout came because it forced me back into that cycle and I went through it I went through the process of death letting everything letting my old job go letting my old ideas of who I was meant to be go letting my old dreams go to then start as a blank slate receive information learn build up grow change and now get into a new phase we'll then maintain and then at some point in the future it will be time to let things go again and let things die and that is the natural cycle that we see in everything from a tree and a plant or an animal that we also experience and so it's like again this returning to nature and we are part of nature to these cycles
SPEAKER_00:yeah it's an interesting very interesting angle I'm thinking we're recording this at the day where we release a new format which I've like which is new no idea how that will fly it will be when you're hearing this it will be on YouTube already or it should be and it's also will be an audio format where we take time to go deep with farmers and basically we call it the farmers philosophy series where we have time to talk way more about other things than soil health and this whole regeneration piece and it emergence and letting go of control and not having a strict format, which is very difficult for me and things like that. But I'm also thinking like the idea where that will take, maybe it will take over the podcast, which is to have philosophy discussions here, which we have to a certain extent here. And maybe that lets, let's go of, we should let go of the, some of the, the fun structures we talk or maybe not. I mean, it's a, it's 200 episodes in, we can, we can take it anywhere, but we shouldn't hang on to what we've done until now. Don't send me angry emails. I'm not saying we stop with the podcast, but I'm just, thinking about where to take this as well but if you would I just have to look because I'm in the center of Rotterdam I'm looking at Shell and I'm in a building of Unilever a part of it so I'm thinking what if you would control like one of these older systems like institutional player like a Unilever or a big like a big food company and it's clear that they have to go or you have to go because you're running it through the transition and also let go of a number of things but like emerge a new one but you want to do that without too much crumbling because that would just create chaos. Like how would you approach that? I normally ask us, okay, how would you invest a billion dollars? And we've asked that. But in this case, how would you, if you manage a large food company, any large food company, would you, what would you approach be to guide that super tanker through that transition without just saying, okay, let's close the factories and we start new, which you just mentioned. Yeah, that's not the process as well. Like the process involves letting go crumble and rebuild at the same time, which is chaotic and not too much control. But how we approach that with institutional players that we thought they would always be there, but of course they might not, or at least not in this shape and form.
SPEAKER_01:That's such a good question. And I don't have a perfect answer to
SPEAKER_00:it at all. Of course, that would be weird. That would be sort of a, that would be a counterpoint to your, for the first half hour.
SPEAKER_01:No, what's coming to me though, is really about how, how do we embed the deep regenerative principles in the essence of a company or organization, regardless of size and what it looks like? Because I think that is that the, that is essential for a transition to a truly regenerative future. Cause we've used this term regenerative so many times. And what I forgot to say earlier is one of my fears and what's drawing me towards doing these experiences to help people really get it and like see it firsthand is to, um, sidestep or like skip over the potential risk of false regeneration like the greenwashing of regeneration so the principles of regeneration which are synonymous with for me and in my own terms with the original principles which are those that all indigenous peoples around the world have lived by in terms of generosity reciprocity gratitude like affinity for all for all life that in some form or another is what underpins all of our ancestors ways of being so how do we reclaim those and place them at the core of every organization because Because from there, they won't steer us wrong. And it's very different for me. It's very much in contrast to what I observed from afar in terms of many organizations' motivations for making regenerative goals, et cetera, which is more fear-based. It's very much surface and fear-based. And I don't believe that any organization operating from a place of fear will actually embody what they need to to be part of a truly regenerative world 100, 200, 500 years from now.
SPEAKER_00:And then putting my cynical hat on saying, okay, how, where to start? What's the, I mean, start in nature, but where to, to, if you took control of the culture of, of a large organization might even be like listed on the stock exchange, where would you, where would you begin? I
SPEAKER_01:think at the leadership. When I think about, yeah, yeah. I mean,
SPEAKER_00:the largest shareholders maybe,
SPEAKER_01:but. Yeah, both really understanding. the systems mindset, because that's the thing too, right? It's a movement from the oversimplification, which has existed through most of the last century, which has gotten us progress in some ways and also short-term-ism. So it's this whole shift in mindset and ability to deal with complexity, which is the direction we need to go and understand your place in your system and your organization's place in the bigger system and see these nested systems not everyone in an organization should or needs to think in that way right we can't spend all of our time getting people to think in this way and some people just their brains don't work in that way and that's completely fine that's not what they're meant to do but I think at
SPEAKER_00:a leadership level some engineers will really struggle
SPEAKER_01:yeah like sometimes you just need to focus on a specific node, an area. But I think I'm, yeah, that's what's coming to me at this moment.
SPEAKER_00:Because at the end, organizations and companies are organisms and they behave or they should behave according to the laws and rules of nature. And they might not in the sense of what we've built over the last few hundred years in many places or in the last decades in some. But how do we deeply embed regeneration and the principles into large organizations, into any size organizations, honestly, is going to be an interesting, is an interesting, not going to It's an interesting challenge. And what's the role of money in that?
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's what I wanted. It was coming up for me as a question to you. And you mentioned Charles Eisenstein earlier, which I was happy to hear because I'm currently listening on Audible to his Sacred Economics book. And it was making me think because I was just listening to a chapter around negative and zero, basically interest and returns. I was like, gosh, from all these conversations you've had in your mind at this moment, like what, how does it, how can it actually work? How do we actually make it work in this current economic system where we apparently need these returns on investments? Like how, how does it work? Can it work?
SPEAKER_00:So how many hours do we have? No, I think this space is booked for the next few, but It's a constant tension we juggle with because there are, of course, the people that say, okay, let's just raise a fund. We buy degraded land or we invest in companies. We get our returns that we need for that type of fund and impact and return a risk profile and we'll be fine. And I think it's a strategy that can work for a limited amount of time. And I keep coming back to a quote of Mark Lewis that we interviewed of Trailhead Capital that I really pushed on the regeneration piece like can you get VC returns in regeneration and he said we're so far below zero or we're so far behind I don't remember the exact quote he mentioned but he said for a limited amount of time I think we can like we have 10 years to do a lot of things and we're losing biodiversity at a rate that's just very scary it's not a long term thing which may be questions if you should do it or not but he says we can raise capital now with a VC type of return or I'm convinced he said and put it to work in companies that go through really interesting growth curves over the next five to eight years, which is what you need in that type of fund. And then if the next one will be the same, it's a question. It depends. Let's hope not because that means we've regenerated so much. But in that regeneration phase, there is a J curve. You go down, but there's also an abundance that emerges if you do it well. And he argues that that's potential in the region tech space, like in technology companies that help in this, that have that scalability. If that happens, we'll see. I mean, we'll see if that plays out. And I think in the land space as well, if you buy really degraded land in the right places and you put all the right practices and you have a good offtake agreement for premium organic soy or something in the US, you can get really interesting returns. And if it's full regeneration, maybe not. I does take out a lot of land from very heavily chemically doused agriculture over the last decades into something that leads to a lot more life, literally. So I think for a short, maybe my answer for a short term, it's possible. Do we want it as a second one? Like, should we just skip that whole in-between transition phase and say, okay, let's not target market-based returns. Let's just go for any returns or even no returns. Like, of course, we argue sometimes with zero interest loans or with the gift economy piece which is fascinating about Charles Eisenstein for anybody didn't read definitely go and read Sacred Economies and the new story I forget the last one but anyway those two books have definitely shaped my thinking so should we just skip that in between phase and jump straight to quote unquote perfect which we don't know how it looks but what would that mean and there's some people arguing for that and say okay we need an evergreen fund like we had Thomas on the that just takes positions in companies and will potentially never sell and gets a return from when the company is very successful, dividend payments or profit share or revenue-based investments. And the most disruptive companies will choose that because they don't want a VC company that has to exit in seven years. So maybe they even search for each other, which is very interesting thesis, which we're going to test. We're going to see if that works or just go to a full gift economy system as well. But what I think is there's so much money created it's such a strong tool that's been used mostly by the non-regenerative industry like the extractive one is really good at it and rightfully so because they learned how to use it so do we also are we like we have very limited time because we keep losing we keep losing the battle so far and that doesn't mean we're not gonna win the war but like do we have to build non-perfect systems now that can attract quite a bit of capital to be put to work to plan to to take out a lot of land out of incredible chemical dosing and figure out along the way what then the next phase of the next step in the transition is and we all agree it's not perfect I pushed Paul McMahon of SLM on that like you're going to build another 10 plus 2 fund for land regeneration and you know it's not the ideal way you said yes but if I do an evergreen structure I would raise a lot less which means I have a lot less land and I know it's not ideal we want to put it in a reed at some point we want to have an eternal vehicle that just grows with the asset and slows down will build over time. But I also need to put money to work. Like I need to make, I want to make these investments now because the opportunities are there. And if we wait five years, then the trees are planted in five years and not this year. And if we wait and the same, we haven't interviewed her yet, but a friend of the show said, yeah, I can spend two years trying to fundraise an evergreen structure and raise maybe 10 million, or I can do 25 million now. And in 10 years, figure out what's the next step of this fund. So it's I'm starting to lean more towards let's raise as much with the best current conditions we can do and put it to work because we're losing so much and we're in such dire conditions, but it might be also sort of flight forward and not willing to go deep enough in the regeneration piece to figure out, okay, what our regen, and I noticed I'm on a long rant, but what our regen fund structure or investment structures look like that can raise a lot of capital, But for what I keep hearing from the sector, we're not there yet. Like we cannot, we're not, they will be too small to have a deep impact now, but maybe in a few years and maybe if we train enough investors on retreats and emergent experiences that they will be open to it. But so far the response has been great, but let's not innovate on too many different things. The topic is already complicated. And so if we do also a structurally complicated thing, yeah, it's just not going to fly and the money will fly somewhere else. And that's, I think the issue as well. Like if we agree of money will be put to work somewhere like do we maybe in some other tech and maybe some other climate piece but maybe somewhere else completely somewhere else completely and doing a lot of harm so that's the tension we we juggle with like how perfect do you want to be and and how much hectares do you want to touch or impact you want to touch how many companies do you want to touch and um yeah how much money can you raise with that and and thus put it to work because in this case it's for many it's the the bottleneck like more investment means faster and less investments means slower unfortunately
SPEAKER_01:yes yes now I I'm with you on that and I was just seeing in my mind this visual of like a tree and this comparison almost like do you take the current work within the current system and really seize the opportunities that arise and like grow new branches yeah start like flowing money circulating money in a certain direction to have a new shoot but it's still off of like the main tree versus take the risk of planting a tiny seedling or seed and hoping that it can sprout and suddenly grow faster and faster and faster than the other tree so I intuitively and I think even my own work you know I'm stepping back into the system I'm not sitting in but you weren't sure a year ago or a half a year ago yeah and I could have easily been like reject it you know go go completely the other end of the spectrum. So it's like, how do you find this middle ground and kind of work with both, which I think is what we need to do.
SPEAKER_00:But I think just to double click on, I mean, I think it's called the Abundance Edge or something like that, which comes from John Fullerton and what is it, the Capital Institute? Anyway, I'll put it below. And I saw it in the deck of Planetary, which is the fund Thomas runs on Evergreen's structures are an evergreen fund focused on regeneration in the food system. And I had to Google it because it sounded nice, but I didn't really know what it meant. But it's that interesting, like one foot in and one foot in the other space and just at the edge. So you're, what you mentioned before, what's the bridge that we're not too weird, but interestingly enough to attract enough capital or enough resources, enough talent, enough brainpower, because that's what we need really. I don't think we need the money necessarily. It will follow, but we definitely need more people building with the right intentions and the right structures. But then at the same time, as a podcast, we function mostly, I would say, in the gift economy. Like we don't charge. We are completely dependent on financial supporters that keep us going. So if you're one of them, thank you. Really, thank you. This is the extreme luxury of being able to talk to anybody and anybody in this space and having time and not being guided by or having the guide rails of large corporates or large sponsors. is a luxury because of our listeners and we don't have a massive podcast so we cannot do ads etc we won't do ads as well we get approached don't worry but we always say no and but we're completely dependent on financial supporters and yes we work sometimes with some foundations and and some groups that um would like to support us to do a specific series like on nutrient density and we're going to do one of water cycles next year and and but it's always us saying we want to do this series with these interviews um would you like to support it or not we don't know We have enough financial supporters to keep us going. We would love to do it. We would love to make more interviews. We have more stories that we can possibly do with a weekly one. We might go to twice a week next year, but we're not dependent on a big foundation or a big corporate donor or something that then is going to check every interview we do. And so it's that freedom functions because we opened it up and said, okay, we can do this because of all of you. We have a number of companies that we featured that support us, but of course, It's not connected to the interviews we did because we don't want to go anywhere near there. And so I'm extremely grateful for that, that we are able to function in the gift economy as Charles and others have pioneered. And that gives us a freedom to act. And it's very interesting how that connects to farmers as well. We had a deep conversation and that will be on the video as well. These are power struggles. We want the ag and food system to be more independent, to be less dependent on inputs, but also less dependent on output. and suppliers and offtake agreements that somehow extracted everything from the countryside and everything from the forestry and everything from the oceans. And we need that power to come back to the key decision makers of our time, which are land stewards and farmers. They decide our future. There's no question that we can decide everything we want in these nice concrete boxes, but it's not up to us. So how do we make sure they are empowered to do that? And maybe that requires a few resources. So it's, I think, very powerful that as a podcast as we operate in in the gift economy because that makes us hopefully a more long-term that's very important and also independent voice that we can take it wherever our curiosity leads us without having to go and do certain interviews or having to put a spotlight on certain things that we just don't think is worth honestly your your your your time and dear listeners so it's a but it's a struggle yeah where do you have to keep the lights on as well we have to run the laptop and the microphone and pay for hosting um But it's so far has been working very well and surprisingly well.
SPEAKER_01:And I think that gives, even though it can be small little nuggets, like proof of what operating primarily in a gift economy way can look like and how it can start to emerge even in this container of the current model and system.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we never talk about it. We should maybe, what do you think? We should probably do that more. which is explaining how this model works.
SPEAKER_01:Also, through your conversations over all these episodes, has that been part of the conversation? And I'm just curious how you've seen the conversation, I'm talking about the big global conversation, shift when it comes to investment and regeneration. Because I think back to when I started working on food with these companies five years ago, going into a room and even mentioning the word agriculture or regeneration, people would often stop and go, what do you mean? And then a couple of years later, much faster than I could have predicted, like the global conversation had moved where we had a common understanding in general, maybe slightly different, but common understanding of what meant and we could move the conversation much further. So I'm just curious to hear your observations and maybe anything that's related to that gift economy piece.
SPEAKER_00:I think on the observation piece, it's going faster than I expected. Definitely. I mean, having conversations with large institutional players or large family offices that really control a lot of wealth. And we can have a long argument if that concentration of wealth is good or not. But it is as it is at the moment. So let's figure out a way to put some of that to work. Way earlier than I expected, people get hooked, get bitten by the bug. I don't think it can, like, once you see it, you cannot unsee it anymore. Like this sector of food and ag needs a structurally big redesign, as you wrote so nicely. So I think that conversation has shifted dramatically. We cannot care about climate, health, inequality, women's rights, any of the SDGs, basically, or anything you want to move, you have to at some point touch soil, food and ag, or the first meter or two of the oceans. There's no way to do this unless you believe in magic wands and we all grow our food in a factory tomorrow with solar panels and we'll be fine I think you'll be yeah let's say you'll be proven wrong very quickly but so that shift has shifted but then I feel like we're completely at the beginning on the deeper stuff and what does that mean for economy and I think the economy discussion has been changing like what does the economic system we have built means and does and what kind of conditions have we built into that and an impact investing I see because I do spend quite a bit of time with impact investors in general at Tonic I see that conversation of concentration of wealth uncomfortable being uncomfortable with that there's some members of ours that going okay what is enough which is a very interesting thing like of course a first generation wealth which means you sold companies in many cases sort of happened which is very interesting like nobody almost nobody started companies and say okay I want to sell and then be financially off and that's fine that is no they started a company and it happened to turn into something with a lot of luck and hard work into something bigger than they They happen to have the amazing word liquidity event, and suddenly they were an investor. And so the discussion of enough, it's at the fringes still, it's like at the deep end of the pool where you don't touch the bottom, but the discussion is happening and people are giving away a lot and then having the discussion how to do that most effectively. Or they're investing and giving away all the return and just winding down their wealth basically to a smaller pocket, still a lot of money for most people in anywhere that will be more than enough to live the rest of their lives, but to make sure their children are taken care of, them are taken care of, and that's it. but you must have the burden of 400 million or something that nobody would ever need or ever spend. Like you can do a calculation if you want to live very, very comfortably, you need a bit and the rest is just extra and just creates issues. So people are coming to that realization, but a very, very small group in general, I think, and to the power of companies. I think the whole regenerative principles, the ownership structures of companies, like unless we tackle the deep conditions that are in there, we're just not going to get very far. the same with region ag and food, unless we, and I would love to make a series on that, so if anybody has ideas, hit me on it, especially on the transition piece, like the ownership of land in food and ag, like private ownership of land. The more people I talk to, the more like, unless we tackle that, everything else sort of feels like a small fight in the margins. And we're going to change practices, of course, but if it keeps being short-term ownership of land and farmers, especially new entry farmers, cannot get control, I'm not saying ownership, but control over land, long term like who would build soil and why and who is able to pay these massive lease payments and then have a long term agroforestry plan good luck and so we definitely will double click more on that and that elephant in the room is still not discussed a lot but it starts to emerge the same with indigenous knowledge acknowledging that all of this region ag words we're using have a very very long history and we might want to acknowledge that. We did a very nice interview with Liz Carla on that recently. None of this is new, maybe some of the tech, but let's acknowledge where it comes from and let's say sorry for basically being very, very late to the show. This is nothing new and we try to sell books on it and courses and all of it, but this is not something that we discovered 20 years ago or 40, etc. So I think there's an emergence of the deeper discussion, but on that field I feel very very very early like it's these kind of discussions we don't have very often we might have more now let me know if you like it but it's it feels like okay we're still really trying to fit that square into a round hole or the other way around and it's it's difficult because we're bound to institutional investor structures or return profiles or well it's all in our head like it's not that anybody that all of those have been shifted over the last decades and and now suddenly we need to to be bound by rules that's we think have been set in stone a hundred years ago, which of course is nonsense.
SPEAKER_01:What do you think could help most to bring this conversation and these, these deeper conditions that you're referring to in terms of like land ownership and structures
SPEAKER_00:to the forefront? I think the personal experience, like unless people, that's why I always start with the question, why soil from all the other amazing career paths you could have chosen and I I always double click and it takes half an hour to get to the source. Okay, why did you go left, right? And so I think what you mentioned before, and that's why I'm so interested to continue that conversation, is how do we get, even though it doesn't scale at all, but I think if you get the crucial catalysts to have, to see what their version of regeneration could be, I think it's very, very powerful. So I don't think we can get it from an analog screen in a concrete box. I hope you're listening to this on a long walk somewhere in the forest. So we might combine the technology and the analog. But unless we go out, I mean, I keep quoting, if we keep meeting on Zoom, this is not going to go anywhere. And it helps with coordination later. Let's keep it that way. So I really think, I think, and many interviews like go out, visit farms, spend time, listen, listen to the struggles, to the issues, the opportunities, and you'll be amazed because Most of what you thought about food and egg probably isn't true. And so start learning with the pioneers as they are learning, because also they don't know. And spend time with your local indigenous tribes, wherever you connect to the local wildness, et cetera. Because unless we do that, it just, yeah, we use the same structures to figure out a different problem, which is simply impossible.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. It's like, in a way, how do we adopt this childlike curiosity and wonder in a way and move from this hyper knower state? And I know that state well, because that's what I, my default mode. It's like, I know this, I know how things work. I know what to do and actually do what you just said, listen. And I think that was one of the biggest, the through my travels was being completely humbled and being like, yes, I've worked in this space for a while. Yes, I've been on some farms in Europe, but never in these sort of regions. I mean, I don't know much. And then watching these indigenous people and the expression of their wisdom in every walk through the forest, knowing what would be poisonous, threatening, know what could heal if you got bitten by a snake, all of these things that there's no way I could have ever learned that in a classroom or in a conference and just be like okay yeah I need to get off of my own like pedestal and and receive and listen and learn
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think then how do we combine that with the organizational structure or the company structure, which is such a powerful organism in a way that it brings this impact to the world and brings the scale and ships the boxes and make sure the food gets on the table and replaces some of the other very efficient organisms that are doing that currently or change them. So how do we hold that tension between running companies, selling boxes, or selling whatever you're selling and make sure we hold that complexity and hold the regeneration piece deep inside. I think that's the tension. Because we've learned really well how to build efficient organizations of massive scale. And now probably that scale is an issue, but we need some scale because there is economies of scale that are there. And so how do we build those while keeping the regeneration piece so deep? within those. And I think it's possible. And we're seeing examples now that are just operating on a different level in terms of culture inside, in terms of outputs, of course, in terms of ownership structures, in terms of happiness of people inside, happiness of customers, clients, employees, suppliers, et cetera. And so it's definitely possible. I think Frederic Lallou wrote a very nice book on reinventing organizations, which is also operating in a gift economy. You can just buy it or you can pay later what you think it's worth, which has been a huge inspiration for our video course, for our podcast, et cetera. And he showed many organizations that are just really good companies, but they're operating on like a completely different level. If you look at organizational structure, if you look at openness, if you look at power dynamics, not saying it's any easy, but as an investor or as somebody that has to put money to work, I would also argue you would like to back something that lives the longest because as long as it doesn't die, your investment is doing something And I think we have to look at structures. We have to look at farms that are meant to survive very, very long because they are creating more value than they extract. And so it would be very stupid to ignore that, even though it might be uncomfortable and you lose a lot of control and you have to let go of things. It will be a very interesting ride, that's for sure. So I think we're in a very interesting space.
SPEAKER_01:it's a period of great potential evolution
SPEAKER_00:upgrades I think Charles calls it like something we're out of the adolescent coming out of the adolescent stage as and of course it goes way deeper like way way deeper as humanity and we have to yeah we're growing up and it's very painful which many I think recognize as adolescent as the adolescent stage but then after it gets calmer and and We have a much longer view, or we should have.
SPEAKER_01:Yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think this is a good moment to wrap up. We're an hour plus in. We could talk for another four hours, but we'll keep that for another time, maybe episode 300 or 250 or something like that. And I want to thank you so much for joining me. Is there any, I wouldn't say parting words, but it sounds really bad, like something you would like to share before we wrap up?
SPEAKER_01:Well, first off, thank you for having me for this conversation and the gift of being able to have this and share and hopefully share with listeners who learn something. And yeah, I think it's just an invitation for everyone listening to really explore this intersection between the inner and outer world and the what is that inflection point and how do we take care of ourselves and regenerate ourselves, knowing that it is an indirect pathway to regeneration of the outer world. And I'm encouraged by things like the inner development goals, which you may have heard of, and they just had their first big symposium or conference last week that acknowledge our naming and scientists around the world coming together to say we won't reach the SDGs unless we work on inner inner work so it's the invisible part and it's all about the mindset and returning to our core values and our true nature as human beings which is why I believe that while things may not look so great on the surface today I still carry a great deal of hope and belief that things can shift more quickly than perhaps we even expect because of our ability to evolve as humans humans.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think it's a very good end note of this is a marathon. If we literally burn ourselves out or vigorously, then we're not going to get anywhere. And it's interesting this year has been extremely busy on the personal side for us, all good things, but also meant that I had to let go of control of my email and probably have been not answering some people as I have should, but still releasing an episode a week and probably wanting to do more so it's that constant tension of sector growing or like the amount of interesting stories we could tell is almost endless potentially endless and not being able to do that or choosing not to do that because of personal stuff is very very tricky and at the same time seeing the interest in things and the inbound and the potential brainstorms and come to this conference and do this and do that like explode this year like beyond I've ever seen before and this is 13 years I'm following this space so having to slow down or wanting to slow down and speed up at the same time has been a very interesting juggling act and but I think we were okay if I missed any emails long-term ones send me them again please if you're listening because it's not they just disappear at some point because it's just not not able to to answer everything not able to participate in all amazing conferences and brainstorms I would love to but just can't because we have a responsibility to the audience as well and have to like I have to prioritize the interviews and the journey, because we're taking two and a half, 3,000 people on a journey every time. And I feel that as a responsibility and an enormous gift to not saying leading the way, because that's definitely not what we do, but trying to put spotlight on interesting places and people and then go and explore by yourself. Take off your headphones or close your laptop if you're listening to this on a laptop and go out, take off your shoes, feel it, feel the soil and sense where you're at and and then come back and listen to another episode maybe at some point so thank you so much everybody listening thank you so much Emma for joining us in this 200th and up to the next however many we might end up making Thanks again and see you next time.
