Repricing Nature
A Manifesto for a Regenerative Economy
Prologue
For too long, we’ve mistaken price for value, extraction for growth, and money for meaning. But beneath every economy lies a living Earth — ancient, generous, and now, in peril.
We forgot that nature is the foundation of all wealth. We paved over forests and called it development. We drew down aquifers and called it agriculture. We dissolved the coral and called it progress. And our currencies, untethered from Earth, inflated with promises they cannot keep.
This manifesto is a call to reprice what we have undervalued, and to revalue what we have not priced at all: The song of soil. The intelligence of oceans. The breathing of forests. The right of life to continue.
We propose a new anchoring of economic value in the regenerative cycles of Earth — not as symbolism, but as sound economic reform. Because money must once again learn to listen to the living world.
This is not a tweak. It is a turning. From abstraction to aliveness. From deficit to reciprocity. From short-term metrics to long-term meaning.
We call this: Repricing Nature.
Principle 1: Nature Is the Original Asset
Before there were balance sheets, there were riverbeds. Before there were stock markets, there were forests. Before the invention of coin or currency, life flourished in reciprocal abundance. We do not create value from nothing. We transform what Earth offers — clean air, fertile soil, fresh water, stable climates, pollinators, oceans, forests, and minerals — into the things we trade and the lives we lead. Nature is not a sector of the economy. It is the substrate of the whole. If we fail to account for this, we are not managing value. We are miscounting our future.
Principle 2: Money Is a Mirror — Let It Reflect Life
Money is a social technology. It does not grow on trees — but trees make it possible. It is not evil. It is powerful. And like any mirror, it can reflect what we choose to see. If money is decoupled from nature, it will inflate delusion. If money is linked to regeneration, it will reward the repair of life. We must remake our currencies to reflect what is real: That all wealth begins in the biosphere.
Principle 3: We Must Account for What We Love
We only count what we value. And we only protect what we count. For generations, natural systems were considered “externalities.” This is a failure not of finance alone, but of imagination. To account for ecosystems — their flows, stocks, services, and stories — is not to commodify them. It is to see them clearly, to value them rightly, and to design policies that align with life. Accounting is not the end goal. Right relationship is.
Principle 4: Regeneration Is Not a Trend — It’s a Treaty with Time
Regeneration is not a brand. It is not a green premium. It is not optional. It is a promise we make to the future: That we will leave more life than we take. That we will restore what has been drawn down. That we will build economic systems aligned with the natural logic of renewal. To regenerate is to remain. Anything less is liquidation in disguise.
Principle 5: The Wealth of Nations Must Be Alive
GDP measures flow — but not direction. A country can be rich in transactions and poor in soils. A nation can grow its markets while bleeding its living systems. We must move from Gross Domestic Product to Gross Ecological Integrity. From wealth measured in digits to wealth felt in landscapes. From phantom value to rooted vitality. The true wealth of a nation is not what it extracts. It is what it stewards.
Pathways Forward: From Pegs to Reciprocity
We are not calling for a single policy. We are calling for a shift in worldview — from which policies, currencies, institutions, and cultures will follow. We envision a world in which:
- Currencies are partially indexed to nature, reflecting the regenerative capacity of Earth as a constraint on credit.
- Monetary issuance is linked to ecosystem health through transparent indices, co-governed by central banks and ecological institutions.
- Natural Capital Commissions and Ecological Monetary Councils work alongside ministries of finance and treasuries to safeguard long-term value.
- National wealth accounts include forests, rivers, biodiversity, and soils, not as scenery but as sovereign assets.
- Public dashboards display the true balance sheet of nations — ecological integrity alongside economic liquidity.
- Education systems teach ecological economics as a foundational literacy — as basic as numeracy, as urgent as civics.
- Regenerative policy becomes the default — not a niche, not a cost center, but the design of economic intelligence itself.
This is not a utopia. It is a reality-in-waiting, ready to be born through collective will, creative governance, and courageous imagination.
Invitation: A Pledge to Reprice with Care and Courage
To every policymaker, entrepreneur, teacher, technologist, central banker, community elder, and citizen of Earth:
This is your invitation to participate in the great repricing of our time. To stand for an economy that values what gives life. To recalibrate finance toward the flourishing of all species. To honor the Earth — not just in words, but in how we measure, value, and transact.
We know this will be complex. But the alternative — ecological collapse masked by rising GDP — is not complexity. It is catastrophe. Let us build a future in which the wealth of nations reflects the wellbeing of the Earth. Let us anchor money in the logic of life. Let us reprice nature — and in doing so, revalue our humanity.