The opening panel of EIF 30Years celebration was hold by Dr Jan-Gilbert Schultze, from Acton Capital.
Dr Schultze made a fascinating presentation in which he drew parallels between the way the soil and the planet operate in regenerative fashion, and the linear, extractive model that we apply in our existence, from our daily lives right through to how we run the economy.
We are called for a paradigm shift to re-align with the universal principles of life, like diversity, collaboration in the form of interdependent symbiosis and circularity, ultimately introducing the rights of life and the rights of nature into our laws and P&L calculations.
👉 Watch the full presentation and discover what it would take to shift to a circular economy.
#eif #30yearsbold #circulareconomy #change
Credits
Presentation’s images: Antonia Beck; Bioland e.V, Norbert Blau; Jayaprakash Joghee Bojan-National Geographic; Werner Büchel/Getty; Armin Hallmann, University of Bielefeld (Germany); Ulet Ifansasti-Greenpeace; Connor Jackson-Open Cages; Adam Koziol; Norman Kroon; Ivar Kvaal; Achim Mende-NASA; Mario Mertens; obs/Calumet-Share Now; Jim Richardson- Conservation Research Institute; Christian Rizzi-AFP; Stefan Somogyi-researchgate.net; Homer Sykes/Alamy; Jochen Tack; Isabella Tree-Knepp Castle; Luke Thompson-Chisholm Lab and Nikki Watson-Whitehead, MIT; Matthias Tschumi; Wang Gang-Xinhua-Getty Images.
dear ladies and gentlemen good morning I would like to express my deep gratitude to urish gra and his team and the European investment fund for the opportunity to talk to this illustrious audience celebrating 30 years European investment fund an institution that has been essential in the formation of my firm acting capital is a great opportunity to look ahead I’m standing in front of you as an investor co-founder of Acton capital and the founder of the charitable regenerate Forum being an investor satisfies my curiosity to understand how this world functions and what are the cycles that are driving its period of disruption and transformation be it economically socially or culturally for this presentation I was challenged to reflect upon the question does our survival need a business case as it implies we’re living at a decisive moment in human history I strongly believe that if we continue on our current path then our economic and financial systems run the risk of collapse climate change the extinction of spe species pandemics increasing mental and chronic disease an unsustainable distribution of wealth populism and institutional crisis point the way so my answer to the question is yes it needs a business case and being an optimist I believe this business case is right in front of us but picking up on President Bill Clinton’s famous quote it’s the economy stupid this business case needs a radical shift in mind and I need to disagree Mr President it’s not the economy it’s nature stupid let’s imagine for a moment a region in Europe we would like to invest in we are in the year 2034 this beautiful old apple tree is in this region the community here started 10 years ago to proactively respond to the challenges of climate change and started to think the regional economy from the soil up they organized round taes of all stakeholders Farmers Foresters business owners and Artisans politicians artists and scientists were brought together to create action plans for a healthy environment this included working on soil Health biodiversity clean Clean Water and Air regionally produced food and vibrant Villages and culture they created resilient and cooling climate Landscapes interl by hundreds of kilometers of hedg RS new biotopes Diversified forests water locked mes restored rivers and streams ponds and lakes the soils have become again rich in soil carbon and store a lot of water while heavy rains quickly infiltrate and Do no harm biodiversity has significantly increased and all species threatened by Extinction have returned the farmers and Foresters were the drivers of the transformation which was financed by local businesses Waterworks and consumers farmers and Artisans provide fresh local food in Regional supermarkets and stores and deliver directly to Consumers doorsteps the organic food has become the basis for the meals in the local cens and gastron children students and elderly in kindergartens schools universities and retirement homes all manage eatable Forest Gardens universities entrepreneurs and startups work together developing new technologies to further enhance this regenerative transformation businesses and farmers are closely networked leading the way in implementing a circular regenerative economy how many of you would like to invest with me in this region and how many of you think dream on my friend before you decide let’s Elevate our view on our planet Earth and let’s try to understand what holds it alive and together on April 12th 1961 I was two months old Yuri Gagarin Russian cosmonaut was the first man to F fly into space when he saw the Earth from space he said I see the Earth it is so beautiful few astronauts have been Untouched by the sight some have encountered God the experience of our planet as a borderless living ho and the fragility of its atmosphere its blazing blue in the dark deadly space has touched the these people deeply our planet can be divided into three spheres the geosphere the biosphere and the human sphere these spheres are embedded in the Universal principles of life and please understand they build on each other the biosphere cannot exist without the geosphere and the human sphere cannot exist without the biosphere to understand how these spheres emerged and internet in in in and interact we need to go back 5 billion years the geosphere emerged from a burning dust cloud 4 billion years ago the atmosphere consisted mainly of water waor carbon dioxide nitrogen there was no oxygen the Earth cooled and oceans formed as water vapor turned into Rain by providing all the inorganic elements and water the geosphere created the conditions for emergence of life so how did life and the biosphere emerge out of the geosphere and what were the drivers basically there are three forces who are at the center of this emergence it is photosynthesis the soil carbon cycle and the soil water cycle all drivers being deeply intertwined without constant energy Supply there would be no life on Earth the Earth’s energy comes from the sun the essential building blocks of life on the planet are inorganic molecules water and carbon dioxide it is photosynthesis that converts sunlight into organic sugar by synthesizing water and carbon dioxide releasing oxygen in the process let’s look deeper into the engine room into the soil carbon cycle between 30 to 50% of the sugar the carbohydrates that a plant generates through photosynthesis flow through its roots into the soil as a nutrient this way the plants feed the bacteria in the micro risle fungi who transform the sugars into soil carbon which is a key source of nutrients for soil life and plants in return for the sugar the micro risl fungi provide nitrogen phosphorus and other essential nutrients s such as zinc magnesium and copper to the plants giving and receiving it is this symbiotic relationship between plants and soil that drives life on Earth 95% of our food feet and organic raw materials originate from the soil soil is by far the most biologically diverse and most overlooked ecosystem on Earth soil contains a large variety of organisms which interact and contribute to the life force Cycles a spoon of healthy soil contains more living beings than humans on this planet living soils are made up of bacteria multicellular organisms worms and insects in the vast fungal Network in many cultures soil are referred to as the mother of all in German we call it mut the so carbon creates numerous winds winds by transforming carbon dioxide the greenhouse gas into soil carbon storing it longterm it has huge potential to mitigate climate change soil is a sponge the more soil carbon in the soil the more water can be stored and infiltrate into the soil just remember the floods we just have in the south of Germany um the level of soil carbon correlates directly with the nutrition density of the food and last but not least a healthy soil biome determines plant Health Animal Health and Human healths the biome in our stomachs is related to the biome in the soils healthy soils feed health healthy plants field healthy humans and now let’s look at the soil water cycle as mentioned before carbon Rich soils store vast amounts of water like a sponge much water is required in the process of photosynthesis for each molecule of carbon dioxide fixed and each atom of oxygen released several hundreds of water molecules are evaporated plants take up water from the soil through their Roots release it back into the atmosphere through Leaf transpiration and by doing so they significantly contribute to the local moisture content this is the natural cooling system of planet Earth healthy biodiverse and stratified forests have a vast Leaf area which translates into high transpiration rates contrary to what we tend to imagine the the amount of water released in the atmosphere by a forest normally is greater than the amount of water evaporated from the same area of the ocean this creates a low pressure Zone over the forest that acts like a pump sucking in most air moist air from the ocean into the continent a process very well explained by the biotic pump Theory forests are gigantic heat pumps mitigating heat trees of healthy forests also emit volatile organic condensation nuclea these tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere together with Airborne microorganisms enable Cloud condensation they literally help form rain droplets with precipitation the cycle starts all over again maintaining the water flow and the cooling effect please realize not water seeds plants but plants seed water we need to finally understand that the Earth is not a collection of some elements and some chemical processes but a living organism photosynthesis is the respiration of this planet transforming energy into nutrition the soil carbon cycle is one hard chamber pumping carbon into the soil and the soil water cycle is the other hard chamber pumping minerals and water from the womb to feed the plants and regulate the climate on this planet yes and the soil is the womb of Life the word human derives from humus that’s where we come from and we go back dust to dust and soil to soil and the rivers are the ve and the groundwater are the arteries of this organism that our planet is a living system is not a new idea Gaia theory was developed in the 1960s by James Lovelock and Lin margules it states that the biosphere intertwined with the geosphere self regulates the earth’s climate and the gas composition in the atmosphere in a way that allows life to flourish this theory was for many years criticized by scientists but in the last 20 years more and more scientific evidence is backing love loocks and margulis Theory ladies and gentlemen I know it’s hard to comprehend that this planet is a living organism I hope that the following animations will help you to imagine how the heart chambers work see how the process of photosynthesis is generating the heartbeat of Life what you see is how the photosynthesis is driving the soil carbon cycle over a year with the photosynthesis performance sorry with with the photosynthesis performance in the north striking strongly shrinking strongly in the wintertime and the rainforest around the equator consistently performing photosynthesis and pumping carbon into the soil the next simulation shows you the biotic pump of the soil water cycle at work over the Amazon rainforest the Amazon rainforest is the heart of the continent pumping far more water than the Amazon River carries Amazon River carries less water than is going through the flying Rivers huge streams of humidity in the atmosphere which are diverted at the mountain region of the Andes into the South they providing significant rainfall in the wealthiest region of South America between s Paulo and bues you can also see how the Amazon rainforest is sucking in the humidity from the Atlantic the biotic pump the emergence of Life on planet Earth is embedded into four Universal principles of Life I’ll touch on each emergence when the parts of a system interact new properties of or structures are possible life is self-organized izing damic and adaptive the emergence of nature follows two design rotes first it moves from the simple to the complex we call this a holarchy an atom is a holon something that is simultaneously a hole as well as a part of a larger hole the molecule could not exist without the atom and the organism not without the cell and humans not without the biosphere this complex complexification is what we call Evolution while entropy governs thermodynamic transformation that releases energy at the expense of complexity evolution is the counter Force accumulating energy we call this Force centropy we can observe the Copic complexification in the evolution of the biosphere 3 billion years ago it were cyanobacteria intro which introduced photosynthesis and transformed the atmosphere releasing oxygen then the bacteria developed into multicellular beings out of which green algae emerged the algae being the ERS of all plants to reach land algae to reach land algae were able to establish relationships with the melium of the micro Riser fungi which compensated for the missing Roots through fungi and bacteria decomposing organic matter and rocks soil emerged the first Roots evolved 400 million years ago o plants to flourish animals evolved around the same time first insects vertebrates and reptiles and later mamals prehistoric humans appeared only two to three million years ago and Homo sapiens 200 to 300,000 years ago we emerged out of the biosphere we are part of it but be aware it is the less complex organisms like bacteria fungi and plants who con constitute 99.5% of the biomass weight on this planet humans only contribute 0.01% of the total biomass listen to the world famous biologist linnn margules on the role of bacteria now we unfortunately have no sound um the second design rule of emergence is that the evolution of life is following the same design patterns of all levels of existence on all levels of existence we call this fractality a nerve cell the melium of a fungi the wp and the structure of the universe all follow the same design pattern the second principle of life is collaboration this simply means that living things cooperate with each other and other through with each other through numerous symbiotic relationships trees are not solitary creatures the life in communities where mother trees Supply weaker trees with nutrients WEA via the microle fungal Network in the soil this has been empirically proven it is herbivores animals who feed on plants that are pruning the Prairies savanas and trees and forests on this planet the pruning promotes New Growth through photosynthesis firing up the soil carbon cycle it is then the Predators or what we call the key spe species that are balancing the population of the herbivores so that the pruning does not harm the plants and while you might not consider this relationship very collaborative the only key species that has caused the extinction of species is man diversity there are more than 8 million species of bacteria fungi plants and animals the more nodes a network has the more connections the network has the more ways the network has to adapt to change so diversity creates resilience last is circularity the living beings of the biosphere produce matter that feeds other beings nothing is wasted everything is recycled and returned to life so the biosphere is intrinsically sustainable and does not produce anything that threatens the basis of life so we must recognize that this place is a living organism a of life living beings are not separate species but part of a mosaic that has emerged the biosphere is deeply interconnected we humans simply cannot exist without the part that came before us ladies and Gentlemen let’s move now after we’ spoken about the geosphere and the biosphere let’s now move to the human sphere the human sphere emerged out of the biosphere and the The Bu human sphere is basically our economy our societies our cultures and the moment we we built this human sphere something very interesting happened we went in complete separation to the biosphere over a long period of time and the story was that separation the oldest story about the separation is the expulsion from the paradise and if you read the Bible the paradise was on planet Earth it was then the church in the mideval ages who transcended the the the the the paradise into the heaven and on on Earth was hell and everybody wanted to get up there but that was a further step in separation and it was then in the Age of Enlightenment when brilliant people like Isaac Newton who who discovered the mechanic laws of physics uh and Renee deart um actually introduced a notion of looking at the whole living system with a mechanical view deart was a very religious person and he wanted to prove that the soul is connected to our body uh the soul he considered to be of having eternal life and um he couldn’t prove it so in the end he came to the conclusion that the body is just a machine and um today I think in no moment of human history have we as have we been as disconnected from the living system as we are now um the human sphere is also run by certain principles and surprise surprise these principles are 180° contrarian to the living principles of life um we have a reductionist view at life we think we can manipulate it we can reorganize it we can dominate it um we have uh we think that competition instead of collaboration is really the way to move forward uh we think that um this is a much better way of organizing um uh life uh the monoculture and by the way we don’t do this only in in in agriculture we we do this also on our financial markets if you’re are conglomerate you have to accept a discount um because that’s what we call the conglomerate discount um so the resilience is not really valued by our markets um and our systems are linear we we we take we produce and we dump and um if you think this further and think about the pillars of this extractive economy which we have created have a look at this picture what you see on the on the left is a rainforest and then you see a palm oil Plantation and then you see housing the interesting thing is the rainforest doesn’t appear in our accounting uh only once we cut the rainforest and we turn it into palm oil Plantation um actually it appears in our accounting uh be it on a company level or be it on a GDP level and the interesting thing is if you cut the palm oil Plantation and build houses on this you actually generate more GDP um but nobody accounts for what has happened to the to the living system and then we have this great leverage effect which we all love particularly the large PE companies and if you think about that this PE this this leverage effect is basically like throwing gas into the fire if the system behind it is extractive and we have laws and regulations we actually have far to many of them we’re we’re drowning in bureaucracy when I heard about the European green deal I thought what a brilliant mind has created that finally we are touching upon the right points uh finally we’re moving into a regenerative economy but we have created tons of rules and regulations and constrictions and I’m not blaming the politicians for that I’m not blaming um the the commission for that not at all I think it’s actually great that they did this but if you have to contain an extractive system the only way you can do it is with restrictions and regulations um so um this is basically bringing a lot of things to stand still but the fundamental thought about Behind These regulations is actually brilliant our Energy System of course is highly extractive as we know and if we think about technology and digital technology these companies are seriously extractive um actually they are extractive against as human beings they take our data um they make us addicted they they destroy the brains of our children uh um and they’re hugely profitable and We’re All Amazed by these so-called platform companies um if we look at the primary sector let’s look at agriculture The primary sector is where the raw materials are coming from and um the industrial sector is actually uh organized highly mechanized as you know and it’s it’s it’s it’s a monoculture and if you look at a monoculture what you see here is a corn field and in this corn field between the rows of the Corn you see a lot of empty space you actually see a lot of barren ground and what happens to this Barren ground if there is a blank Earth what happens is there are plants coming and they try immediately to cover that ground because if you tear off the plants from a ground it’s like I’m tearing you off your skin and but we don’t like these plants in in the system we actually call them weeds and we use herbicides to spray them away because they they they they make the efficiency of our agriculture they destroy the efficiency of our agriculture so we then have the insects Who attack these monocultures because they don’t like them they think they are sick they they’re not diverse they want to kill them so that diversity can come back and then we have the fungi who are trying to do the same and for each of these we have the insecticides we have the fungicides in the United States uh they put one and a half pound of poison uh per person uh out on these fields you remember the the the the symbiosis between the animals and the plants we’re putting the plants in containment um that’s that’s a feeding lot in the United States with thousands of cattle and we feed these cattle corn which they cannot digest um because they actually want to live on grass so we have to give them antibiotic and imagine the concentration of manure and antibiotic and the groundwater that this is doing these are the most intelligent animals on this planet um and they have a very sensitive nose but we put them in containment on pits where the manure is right below them there literally living on their and um these are the sanitizing troops of nature they are picking all the germs and the laries and they clean the place um we put put them in big containments and we tell our children don’t come too close to these big containant because the germs that are coming out of there are actually dangerous um this is extractive forestry um this is a clear cut and these clear cuts are happening all over the world and basically what these clearcuts do is um you remember the the the relationship of the mother tree uh with the community of trees of course it’s destroying these communities um it is actually causing a huge release of carbon dioxide because the micro risle fungi and all the soil life is dying and is going in up into the air uh this is like a wound this is basically destroying the water cycle um uh what we do to the soil is basically destroying the soil carbon cycle um by the way we have destroyed 50% of all the humus uh in the soil um and we estimate that 20 to 30% of the carbon dioxide osine carbon dioxide in the earth is is originating um from uh us destroying the soils and here we are destroying the water cycle you remember the the picture I showed you the the simulation I showed you with the Amazon rainforest the pump uh this is basically one of the heart chambers and what you see here is um the the the deforestation of the Amazon and in the year I think it’s 2012 I can’t see it um it was a low point and the low point was still 4,000 square kilm 4,000 meters 4,000 km by 1 kilometer in one year um I don’t know how many of you have been at iguasu waterfalls I’m sure you remember them a little bit differently than on this picture uh this picture was taken in 2023 you remember that the the the the the water pump was basically bringing the water down into the South um between buenos Iris and um s Paulo and that’s where the iguasu waterfalls are um the water cycle is not working anymore the heart pump is not working anymore uh it’s actually either not sending water or it’s sending too much water we have streamlined our Rivers the water system we have created uh the water comes down as a rainfall it goes into the gutter it goes into the sewage it goes into the river and we are bringing the water out as fast as we can we’re literally drying out our continents we don’t have a lack of rainfall we have a water system which is basically um taking the water out of the land and there are scientists who are saying this is a major cause of climate change um we’re putting dams into the rivers huge dams I don’t know if you would like to have a dam in your veine um and we have we we love nature and I’m sure if you see this picture you love these flowers it opens your heart um but we are trying to preserve nature at certain places we call these Natural Parks and in the rest of the area we continue as we do so here you see a uh flower stripe in a wheat field and light left left and right he continues to spray with glyphosate and exec todes and um yeah that’s what is happening here so conservation is separation if you look at the secondary sector we still have mainly a linear value chain if you look at the oecd countries 30% is recycled 7 % um is ending in dumps and incinerators and um uh so and and the 30% are actually downcycled so we cannot maintain the level of quality of material um and what you see here is a huge dump of in fact closes in the atakama desert in uh in in Chile it was discovered uh in the meantime you don’t find it anymore because once it was discovered people burned it um um and um yeah we have still planned obsolesence the washing machine should break down after 8 years because we want to sell another washing machine if you think about how this material is being used probably not such a good idea and I was a big fan of globalization and um um but then I saw David atenor film and in this film he’s showing what happened in Bono Bono is 2 and a half times the size of of Germany and it’s an island in Indonesia and it’s the habitat of the orangutan and 50% of the most Diversified rain forest after the Amazon has been clearcut and we planted oil palm plantations you remember the picture with the accounting system and um most of that palm oil is actually consumed by us um so I’m not so sure if globalization really was a good idea because we here still think everything is in order but we don’t see what’s happening in all those countries that deliver the raw materials to us we created human rights it was first in the American uh Constitution um I think 1788 Declaration of Independence it was a brilliant idea um and if you look at Maps you see that there’s still many many red countries in the world where um human rights are still not managed very well and they are currently deteriorating at quite a speed could it be that these things are somehow connected um these people the indigenous people they are the people who are still connected to the living system they consider the plants and the animals to being their brother and sisters and we are doing a pretty good job in more and more getting them extinct they can help us there are areas in the Amazon which are managed by in indigenous people and and you can see it on satellite maps where there’s suddenly a very healthy patch of rainforest and around it um deforestation is taking place um the distribution of global wealth is Frankly Speaking insane um 1% is close to 50% of the worlds 12% is now in the range of 85% this this is simply not sustainable um the Democracy index of the EUR Economist is is basically deteriorating also um more and more democracies who were full democracies turned into so-called flaw M democracies if you look at the science and the education we are still very much in this reductionist mode it’s it’s changing um but um the science is still in the Ivory Towers um they can often not communicate with each other um we we we need to enforce interdisciplinarity much more ladies and gentlemen we are in a degenerative spiral um and climate change is basically the fever of the living system and the the the extinction of the species is simply because the way we act uh within the living system um and um the if we are all business people we like to see numbers uh what you see here is you can find this in the internet are indicators of what’s happening on Earth Earth system Trends and socio economic Trends and what is interesting is uh basically in the 1950s these curves grow all exponential and um so we are basically in a race against the wall so sorry for telling you this very depressing story um and um I think we probably have to go through this to hopefully come up with the right solution and I think there is a business case so um I uh yeah we have to get out of this declining spiral we we if we if anyone in this room thinks that our economies are growing um they’re definitely not growing um if you if you take into account what’s happening to the Natural capital on this planet uh all our economies are in Decline and so what do we do we we need to move to a regenerative Paradigm sustainability is not good enough um we have destroyed 50% of the biomass on this planet 77% of the Wilderness is gone um we need to regenerate we need to regenerate the living system and that’s actually not so difficult because nature is actually quite adaptable and it helps us if we do the right things and yeah the very simple answer I have to what’s the business case is simply we need a business case where we align with the universal principles of life um we cannot go on like this we fundamentally need a paradigm shift and that Paradigm Shift has to be quite radical and I think we are in this period of transformation at the moment it’s the old forces against the new forces it’s an ongoing battle I’m an optimist and I think we will um move uh in this direction we have and and and the simple idea behind this is we need to build a system that respects the law of nature which is giving and receiving and um that requires that we have to rethink the law we need to inter ruce the rights of nature um and I would call them the rights of life and we human beings are part of it our human rights are part of this rights of Life uh read this book you will be surprised a lot is going on in the world in this direction um um we have the first Rivers who have been defined as um as uh p as as legal entities um they own themselves um we have that with mountains we have that with national parks um we are more and more understanding how intelligent this living system is and we need to um respect it we need the rights of nature um and I was complaining about all the bureaucracy um I think we need a new legal approach let’s throw all these rules and and laws into the dust bin um and let’s start with plain level Fields let’s set the boundaries clear and let’s say in 20 years no carbon no no no fossil fuels are used anymore um in 20 years no um pesticides are used anymore ideally in 10 years um let’s define a playing level field where we have some rules and where we have clear Border Lines and then let us entrepreneurs and investors do our job that’s what I think this is the kind of legal Revolution we need um and the the the boundary of this plain level field are the principles of life and we need of course to include the externalities in our accounting this is an example of a German retailer who is showing the real cost of this cheese he’s actually defining where the hidden costs are coming from we need to move to a true costing uh accounting um it’s urgently needed um just the externality ity costs of the food system are according to un estimates between 12 and 17 trillion per year so what does that mean we have to include all these externalities and we have to calculate what’s the real profit of a business and you know uh the csrd um guidelines and are great and having attachment to our um annual accounts and explaining all the things we’re doing but it’s not enough it has to end up in our p&l it has to end up in our balance sheet imagine the revolution in Innovation we would have if we would create a plain level field where all the externalities are finally being accounted for we know about them for more than 130 years years it was a scientist called Marshall and later pigu who actually um made us aware of the so-called externalities we need to have a natural Capital account in our GDP accounting we need to have a human capital account and if it up if it would be up to me it would be just a natural capital account including the humans we need to stop being blindfolded we simply don’t see what we’re doing not in this room but if you look at the PE dry powder at the moment it’s 4 trillion US dollars on a global level I don’t know how much it is in Europe This is a lot of money coming from pensioners um where do you want to invest this money in this extractive system or in a system that actually regenerates life we have to harness the power of the Sun and we do it we have to do more of it I yesterday met a very nice startup who is actually exactly doing this um they can do it on your roof they can do it on the facade I would like that all roofs finally become solar panels and forget it if it’s if if it’s an ancient building let’s put them on all roofs and don’t please put them on our agricultural land we need a revolution in Innovation and Technology I will talk about it in a second but the kind of farming that I Envision uh needs a lot of Technology um uh I yesterday uh sat with entrepreneurs who were um in the battery business and um a lot of Innovations is needed there we need to to find new materials that don’t use as much energy as our materials use like concrete and cement um there are ideas to do it with bacteria which are actually quite uh amazing so there is a lot already there and it would just explode if we set the rules right we need to collaborate we need to participate the law of collaboration this is a picture from Canton glus in Switzerland where the they still come together it’s the smallest Contin in Switzerland uh to vote um we need to sit around the table we have to take off our armor and just fight for our uh uh our needs and our uh interest we need to Envision a world that works differently we need to bring our children into school Gardens every school every University should have a school garden um and science has to get together uh we need interdisciplinarity to move things forward regenerative agriculture that’s how my journey started it is basically focusing on the soil it is about rebuilding the soil the womm and to do that it maximizes photosynthesis over a hectare of land and it’s doing that by creating diversity it so this is a way of farming that is much more Diversified and it’s following certain rules they are minimize soil disturbance um maximize uh crop diversity uh keep the soil covered um uh maintain living roots in the soil and integrate LIF stock stop the plowing do it every 5 years if it’s necessary but stop the plowing that’s just basically throwing up the soil carbon and it oxidize and goes up in the air uh direct seeding seed into the armored soil the directly into the plants it’s all happening it’s all it’s it’s all working it’s nothing new maximize the diversity you see here these plants and the different root lengths so that exudates the carbon at all the Horizons in the soil keep the soil covered you remember the picture with the corn left and right corn this is a catch crop um that is basically basically once you harvest the corn the catch Corp is coming up so there’s always armor on the ground um we need to keep the soil covered year around if you are in the United States in the winter time you see still millions of hectares of land not covered baren soil Sy symbiosis of plants and herbivores uh you remember the symbiosis um there are farmers who have introduced a way of farming called mob grazing where these cattle actually spend a day on a padok and then they leave this padok and the padok is kept idle for 6 to eight weeks so the grass can recover um and that’s a very effective way it actually um causes your grass productivity to increase significantly because that’s how it is happening in nature the herds go through and then they don’t come back for a long time and the grass recovers it brings the soil pump the carbon soil pump into motion and that’s why the savanas and the Prairies are the regions with the highest humus level soil carbon level in the world um mop grazing on the left stock grazing on the right 99% of the grazing on this planet is still stock grazing this this is causing deserts in semiarid regions we don’t see it here yet because we are not in these kind of climate situations agroforestry that’s the way to introduce the forest into the agriculture we need permanent forests forests that are well stratified with a lot of um leaves on all levels of trees of all ages highly Diversified permanent Forest doesn’t mean we don’t cut the trees but we cut them Tree by tree no clear Cuts we need to keep the water in the land we have to completely change our water management we need to rewi and connect our Landscapes again we need to bring back the hatch RS we had them all we cut them in the 50s because we were told it’s more efficient and we should use the land better for our industrial agriculture we need a c economy products need to be designed differently they need to they they they we have all the means of doing it but we are not forced to do it we need to have not compounded materials because you can’t recycle them so well uh we we we need to tell companies to take their products back imagine the kind of innovation uh they would find um to to make all these materials as disposable as possible and recyclable ership in lifetime drive now um You you use the car for whenever you need and you put it back on the street imagine a mobile an automobile producer would he still build in pled obsolesence no he would maximize the lifetime of this car because that maximizes cash flow he gets out of this car we need to change the food chains we have to localize the food chains we have to go local again 60% of the fruit and vegetables in the United States come all from California and are shipped to the east coast and then they spend four five six weeks in in in in containment and the vitamins and the nutrition value is gone uh we have to reinvent our cities uh we have uh Paris is trying to do it with the 15minute city uh we have to localize our energy Supply we have the possibility now to do that with solar um we have to go much more local we need to go gloal a lot of things still make of course only Sense on the global level but a lot of things make much more sense on the local level you remember this apple tree um we at regenerate are actually doing this project at Lake constant and Lake Conant is a very interesting place because it’s surrounded by four countries um Germany Switzerland Austria and if you count little lonstein is country as well um it’s the largest freshwater lake in middle or Europe it’s a highly important source of drink water drinking water um and the starting point looks like this um doesn’t look so bad but it it’s a lot of monoculture but what we want is a climate landscape a cooling climate landscape and what we need for that is water retention we need diversification in in terms of how we produce our food we spoke about regenerative agriculture we want to have connected Landscapes we want to have the hedg r coming back and the forest being connected we want to have um sorry mop grazing we want to have renewable energy of course decentralized in the region and we want to have food foodcrafts back the foodcrafts are gone the butcher the the baker um has all been industrialized and centralized we did a retreat where we brought the farmers and the entrepreneurs of the region together and they studied the soil and I can tell you if you bring an entrepreneur on a regenerative Farm it is blowing his mind um a German entrepreneur very well-known one once told me in every entrepreneur is a farmer um we are creating roundtables of farmers we provide professional moderation we do this also with communities we uh we’re doing it actually in a district at Lake Constance called B that has 23 communities and we bring all the stakeholders around the table to Envision the climate landscape of the future and we are actually creating a refinancing platform with startups like land banking group Regional and green zero where actually the local businesses pay for the ecosystem services that the farmers hopefully do by moving towards regenerative practices this is a crazy project I don’t know where we will be I just recently was at a startup conference in vingan and there was a presentation by EIT food that’s an European institution and I couldn’t believe it they are now promoting to do this in 10 regions in Europe and of course I we’re in discussions because financing this project is very very difficult ladies and gentlemen if you touch your heart and you saw these pictures I showed you sorry for doing that but I I’m sure every one of you feels the pain accept the pain get close to this pain we need a new Consciousness we cannot go on like this the people in this room they can change the world if we work together and we need to move to this new paradigm we need to realign with the living system we need to reconnect this picture is a very famous picture it is actually the last picture that was taken by the Voyager satellite some of you might know that he actually came back to life so and there’s this pale blue dot that was a picture of Earth that’s here that’s us that’s home let’s do it thank you [Applause]