David Leon, co-founder of Farmer's Footprint
REV On Air: Can We Actually Finance Regeneration With David Leon
This podcast episode is a part of the REV x Farmer’s Footprint Regenerative Podcast Series!
Today in the thirteenth episode of our regenerative podcast series in collaboration with Farmer’s Footprint, we are speaking to David Leon, co-founder of Farmer’s Footprint and Biome Capital! David shines a light on the side of regenerative agriculture that we often wonder about don’t always get a full understanding of – the economics of regeneration. We are so grateful to be able to talk to David and have him help us understand the truth of how climate change and the cost of living crisis are affecting farmers and how, during these desperate and dire financial times, it is possible to take steps towards regeneration. David speaks of fascinating and debatable concepts such as placing monetary value on ecosystems and animal species in order for insurance companies and large corporations to take notice and account for them. As well as not working against but empathising with conventional farmers to turn what we already have into something positive and generative for all.
This Podcast episode is brought to you by our friends at EcoCart!
“It’s a hard shift to make, we need to figure out the vocabulary, we need to figure out the formulas and the math and mechanisms to make this come alive for them in a different way than it once has. You have folks I like to mention, Ralph Chami at the International Monetary Fund who’s working on valuing ecosystem assets, things like valuing the blue whale. And saying when a shipping company hits a whale what damage are they actually doing to the larger ecosystem? What is the value of that blue whale?…
…Profit is not a dirty word, the valuations are not dirty words for us in the environmental movement, it’s going to be the way that we can work with these large corporations because they are extremely predictable in what’s important to them, way more predictable than you or I as individuals and what’s important to us. It needs to show up on their balance sheet and we need to figure out a way to get it there so that they can start accounting for it.”
David Leon
Merci To Our Sponsor For This Episode!
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Ecocart exists to lower the barrier to entry for ecommerce brands wanting to become more climate-friendly. We here at REV believe hugely in the power of reducing carbon at every step along a brand’s journey and this is a tool that can help with that whilst helping educate consumers at the same time. EcoCart helps companies transparently tell their sustainability story to align with their customers’ values.
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