Replenishing Money, Nature and People for Sustainable Growth
How giving back grows your money trees
Much has been written about the shortcomings of capitalism, and I will not reiterate them here. I like capitalism.
I like that it has brought me the laptop that I’m writing this article on, the clothes that I’m wearing while writing this, and the coffee that energizes me through this joyful process. I don’t think another economic system would have managed to give me all these resources as efficiently.
And if you think I’ve just been one of the well-off that benefitted most of this system—rest assured that this is not the case. My success throughout academia and industry might suggest that I’m one of the privileged few, but. Nope. My grandparents were refugees, my father made it through to university literally coming from nothing, and when 2008 hit—I was barely hitting puberty then—any trace of financial security I’d ever experienced in my life vanished into nothingness.
It took me 15 years of pain, sweat, and tears to recover financially and emotionally from the crash in 2008; my parents never did; I built my financial empire with my own two hands and still feel like I am in the beginnings of this journey.
But I’m stubborn by nature, and thus I continue to like capitalism as such.
It has brought me stuff and opportunities. It has brought me a great deal of joy and, frankly, life.
It brought me hope for a better life when I didn’t have anything except for holes in my pockets. Many years later, it brought me proof that this promised better life is indeed happening to me.
I have every reason to be grateful for our economic system. But I do have one trope with it.
I hope that by now you can see that this doesn’t come purely from academic reflection. I started studying the philosophy of capitalism at university at age 16, and I have plenty of scientific and philosophical sources to back up my claims (and others to disagree with them). Nevertheless, my thinking primarily comes from my own, real, painful, joyful, unique lived experience.
Here’s the thing: For centuries, capitalism has treated some key resources—humans and nature—as somehow devoid of limits and boundaries. For the past half century, we’ve come to realize that this assumption is wrong. People have feelings and Earth is only so large and resourceful.
Watching as my own few resources—my bank account, the food in my closet, my physical energy—kept running out, and seeing other people throw it around wastefully like it was never going to end was painful, to say the least. But this is not about me.
I think that some economists and thinkers on sustainability have gotten things a bit wrong. I do not believe that we all need to go vegan (if we don’t want to) or embrace a degrowth mindset and empoverish ourselves for the sake of future generations. Future generations likely won’t be proud of us preserving the planet while ruining our very selves anyhow.
I think that, yes, we need to respect planetary boundaries and learn to accept the fact that human and natural resources have limits. However, this does not mean that this is the end of the road as far as human prosperity is concerned.
I think that, if we manage these resources wisely and with respect to their boundaries, they actually replenish and regenerate.
I believe that we can live in abundance and grow our material and spiritual happiness beyond the limits of our dreams. But we can only do so if we accept the idea that we are not the center of the universe and that all streams of goods, money, and energy cannot flow just towards us, forever, and then towards some giant garbage pit where they end when we’re done with enjoying them.
I believe that we need to embrace the idea that we humans are just a small part of the universe, and that all parts depend on one another. I believe that by handling our small responsibility in this world wisely, we can be better off than we’ve ever been before, because we then learn to figure out how to cater to the resources we depend on so much in ways that respect the boundaries of said resources, and in ways that actually replenish these resources over and over again.
Essentially this is about the circular economy, but put on steroids.
And I’m not saying this as an academic; I’m saying this because I’ve lived this exact thing in my own humble life. I’m saying this because, interestingly enough, embracing this philosophy and truly accepting the limitations of my own humble self and my humble surroundings and my humble finite resources has somehow made my life not humble at all. It has allowed me to thrive. And now I want the whole world to thrive.
I founded Wangari Global out of my own humble pockets and those of a couple of generous, close, and trusted friends of mine. In the spirit of sustainability, I’ve stayed away from hungry venture capitalists, despite their interest. Wangari Digest is part of the reason I’m able to keep the lights on over here.
11th Commandment: Thou Shall Not Bleed Your Resources to Death
I was speaking to a venture capital (VC) firm last month (these are the guys that give money to startups like mine, in the hopes of getting back financial returns ten- or a hundred-fold in 3-5 years post-investment).
On paper, they sounded great. They had a longer time horizon than your typical VC firm, had a passion for deep science, and actively thought about what impact they might have on humanity.
While speaking to them, I realized that their philosophy, however laudable, just didn’t match up with mine. They were trying to identify solutions (read: startups) that stretch the finite resources we have or otherwise “hack” them to make them last longer. They’d invested in a startup that promised to make more milk with less cows. And in another one that promised to recycle more wastewater with less chemicals.
Doing more with less.
These were incredibly smart people, but to me there’s a flaw in their thinking: As I painfully experienced myself over three decades total, you can only stretch your resources so far. At the end of all this stretching there’s only one logical conclusion: Wreckage. Collapse. Death. Call it whatever you want.
If you really want to live sustainably (while also living well!), you need to go beyond trying to stretch resources infinitely. You need to replenish them.
Instead of taking less, try giving back. (Spoiler alert: It works. Like a charm.)
As you might imagine, I walked away from that VC firm and renewed my decision to bootstrap my company. I want to give back, not just extract, however efficiently. I’m not in the center of the universe, I’m only part of it. It is my duty to show gratitude to what I receive, not by taking less, but by giving more when I receive. (I did take less—actually zero—venture capital money though. Life is full of paradoxes.)
I can only thrive if the systems and entities I depend on thrive, too. To enable them to thrive, I must take care of them just like they take care of me.
The Fallacy of Limitless Resources
When you read Western economists and philosophers from the nineteenth and until the mid-twentieth century, you’ll notice a peculiar pattern: For some reason, all their thinking hinges on the assumption that natural, and to some extent human, resources are so plentiful that they’re in fact limitless. You’ll find this assumption at play in works ranging from Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and even John Stuart Mill.
Yes, even Mill—who argued that economic growth would flatten out at some point—assumed that natural resources were limitless. He just thought that the human mind was too limited to sustain economic growth forever.
It made some historical sense: The vast expanses of the American continent were largely unexplored, the extent of coal reserves was barely tapped, many starving humans were willing enough to work grueling hours in the underbellies of contemporary industrial factories for a meager wage.
From today’s perspective, however, this seems nonsensical. While many of their ideas have their merit, the fact is that they are based on a very flawed hypothesis.
Modern philosophers and economists have updated this line of thinking. Martin Heidegger argues that technology, if anchored in an exploitative mindset—which, frankly, most of us remain caught up in—can only get us so far before the planet collapses. Amartya Sen connects human economic development to human freedoms, and advocates for systems that promote flourishing rather than exploitation.
Arne Naess, the founder of deep ecology, points out that we need a more holistic view of humanity’s relationship with nature, emphasizing interconnectedness and mutual flourishing. I couldn’t agree more.
Gregory Bateson writes that we need to embrace systems theory and the interdependence of living and non-living entities. We are truly not at the center of anybody’s world except our own. Donella Meadow’s work is an excellent starting point for studying systems thinking.
What Does This Mean for Corporates, Individuals, and the World?
Now that we’ve spoken about me and my philosophical underpinnings, what does this mean for the world?
Well, for once I’m not one to tell you to go vegan and to stop hopping planes if your heart desires something different. We all deserve to thrive and live to the truest expression of ourselves. If for you this means taking a cross-country flight each weekend and eating T-bone steaks on a daily basis, then I refuse to shame you for that.
It just so happens that we live in an exploitative economic system, and unfortunately this means that in today’s day and age there will always be some collateral damage to our every action.
But it doesn’t have to be this way forever.
Many thinkers of the past assumed that natural and human resources are externalities. We, who are in the center of our universe, depend on these externalities. But they’re limitless and so there’s nothing for us to worry about.
Modern capitalist accounting hinges on these assumptions.
Accounting is the bedrock of capitalism as we know it (think of it!), so it is not truly a surprise that the goods and services available to consumers are all to some extent exploitative.
How do we change this?
By changing accounting.
Don’t take it from me; this is no wishful thinking on my part. This is happening as I write these lines. The EU, alongside many other jurisdictions in the world, is changing accounting standards to include humans and nature alongside good old money. These standards are already rolled out and coming into vigor. Thinktanks and NGOs like the International Foundation for Valuing Impacts (IFVI) are taking this a step further by creating frameworks that advance these standards even further.
I don’t want this article to be a technical deep-dive (click the links above if you want more details), so I’ll just keep it at that.
The point I’m making is that legislators and many other smart heads out there are keenly aware that we need to change our economic system to its core. The exciting part about this is that they’re making that change happen.
Barely anyone knows this, but as far as philosophical underpinnings go, we’re living through the biggest economic transformation since the Industrial Revolution.
People, including many smart folks right here on this platform, are getting all hyped up about AI and NFTs and 3D printing and Lord-knows-what, yet they’re missing a truth that I—due to my unique lived circumstances—have had staring me in my face all my life: We’re on the cusp of finally living true human abundance.
By stopping to view resources as limitless, or by trying to do “more with less,” we can create more, life more fully, express ourselves as boldly as our imagination allows us to, by giving back to the systems that allowed us to live in the first place.
Individuals do this by giving the same respect to their surroundings that allowed them to live and thrive in the first place.
Corporations do this by recycling the water they pollute, properly remunerating the people they employ, and by creating goods that actually promote life instead of destroying it.
Banks and other financial institutions do this by funding individuals and corporates that not only understand what’s going on, but which also put their wisdom into practice.
And I, humble as I am, am there to accompany all of them, every step of the way.
One Smart Question
The correct answer will be shared in next Tuesday’s edition.
Answer of last week’s One Smart Question: 70% of the global economy depends on natural resources. Much is therefore at stake!
Wangari’s Curated Reads
- invites one of the world’s most accomplished climate scientists in for a sobering read. Professor Mike Hulme, part of the IPCC and several other influential groups, brings us back to reality. In his piece From Idealism to Realism he argues that much of today’s climate rhetoric is still stuck in the eighties, and many ideas and goals are too outdated to be feasible. Between geopolitics and sustainable climate policies, he argues, geopolitics will always win. A thought-provoking piece and must-read.
- has a long but thoroughly informative interview with another very accomplished climate scientist. Akshat Rathi, Energy Reporter Extraordinaire, shares in this interview plenty of surprising facts about the stance of some oil-and-gas majors on Trump’s policies and the Paris Agreement, how the development of renewables in China and India is partly due to noble climate goals and in large parts due to fantastic unit economics, and what needs to happen to global power lines to truly break free from fossil fuels. A worthwhile read for a relaxed Sunday morning or a long commute!
I like to sound sophisticated, but to be honest I clicked on this article more than anything else because I liked the ring of the name “caliche.”
is running a series on forgotten materials, and here we go with Forgotten Minerals #2: Caliche. It is a great read, not just because it shows how some materials that should have gone out of existence long ago still keep rockin’ on, but also because the piece highlights all the factors—climate, economic, sociopolitical, cultural—that lead to a funny material’s forgetting and persistence.