239 Marcel de Berg - Water is a more important cooling factor than the heat of carbon - Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
After 25,000 hours of research, our guests concluded
that the cooling potential ofgreen water far outpaces the
less heating potential of CO2reductions.
So why don't we switch on thismassive air-co-cooler?
What's holding back the system?
Investors the investors thatmanage pension funds, insurance
companies, etc.

(00:21):
That rely on a thriving globalsystem, which seems very much
under threat.
What language should we use toget institutional investors on
board?
Not shaming or trying toconvince them to stop focusing
on carbon, but maybe offeringthem a free climate insurance,
just in case that carbon isn'tthe only important thing in the

(00:41):
atmosphere and just in case thatgreen water can cool down the
planet.
Let's make sure we don't haveregrets and focus a bit of our
attention and resources onrestoring water cycles,
biodiversity, and even if thatdidn't cool down the planet, it
will still have stored a lot ofcarbon and restored a lot of
biodiversity.
So enjoy today the deep diveinto the mind of the

(01:04):
institutional capital.
If it's true that water vaporaccounts for 60 to 70% of the
greenhouse effect, well, co2only accounts for 25.

(01:25):
Why do we rarely discuss it?
Maybe we choose to ignore itbecause it means we literally
need to re-vegetate the entireearth.
We bring back the marshes, themangroves, the perennial
pastures with trees and re-growreal forests that can bring back
rain in strategic places.
In short, bring back life, lotsof plants, trees, animals back
to many places on this earthnatural climate engineering.

(01:46):
It is time we take our role askeystone species super seriously
.
In this special water cycleseries, we interview the
dreamers and the doers who areusing the latest technology to
figure out where to intervenefirst.
They're making, or trying tomake, the investment and return
calculations and plans.
So what's missing?
What's holding us back?
Maybe we lack the imaginationto back them and try

(02:10):
regeneration at scale.
We're thankful for the supportof the Nest Family Office in
order to make this series.
The Nest is a family officededicated to building a more
resilient food system throughsupporting natural solutions and
innovative technologies thatchange the way we produce food.
You can find out more on theNestFO.
That is nestfocom.
Welcome to another interviewToday with the founder of Green

(02:47):
Water Cools.
Welcome, marceau, thank you,thank you very much.
This has been one that I've beenlooking forward for quite a
while.
We had a pre-call, and the roleof institutional capital in
restoring water cycles has beenfloating literally not intended,
actually, in this case, butabove the sector.

(03:07):
How do we get big money quoteunquote and doing air quotes but
nobody sees that into the spaceand you come from that space
and got hooked on the watercycle, let's say, the water
cycle thinking, and in GreenWater Cools, as the website is
called I will definitely put thelink below you have a great
video explaining why and how aswell, but you don't come from,

(03:28):
let's say, the permaculturespace or the water cycle space.
How did you get into this?
How did you literally fell downthe rabbit hole.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
It started when I read a book of Lester Brown Plan
B.
It's already quite sometimes inMay holiday in 2008.
When I read his book aboutsolving big problems, I was
thinking when I was working forpension funds where can we
invest in this?
Pension funds for solving thoseproblems?

(04:03):
You know, dictating poverty,renewable energy, restoring
nature, liberal cities, etc.
I organized conferences forinstitutional investors and it
was quite a success.
At that time, I was working fora subsidiary at the moment of
Amundi, crédé Gacol.

(04:23):
They were fully intosustainability and one of the
pioneers on this field, and Iorganized the conference and
they were taken over by Amundiand Amundi said okay, we have
our own team, but we do onefinal conference.
I said, okay, I will do so.
And then I want to bring Lesterto the Netherlands and connect

(04:47):
him to Hemel Rijfels, because Iknew that Hemel Rijfels is a
former CEO of the Rabelbank inthe Netherlands.
And then I want to connect him,and then I want to have the CEO
of Crédé Gacol, the CEO ofRabelbank.
And then I'm going to talkabout Plan B funds.
But at the peak of the financialcrisis 2009, amundi said we

(05:09):
don't have any budget left, so Iproceed on my own risk and I
organized the Plan B conferencein Rotterdam on the steamship,
which is Rotterdam, and on thatevening in the room I had the
chairman of the healthcarepension fund and he was a former
minister.

(05:29):
And he said, off the hand,listening to Hemel Rijfels and
Lester Brown, he said, okay, Ithink that he has a pension fund
that should invest heavily inPlan B.
So I gave a commitment of 750million euros if you come up
with Plan B funds.
So I had in the room peoplefrom Rabelbank, the Rabiko, et
cetera.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
So the ears went straight up they weren't
listening until that moment,they were like, yeah, we're
trying to keep our banks alivein this crisis.
But then when somebody says 750million, of course yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:01):
So the ears went straight up.
And then they started workingon Plan B funds and went to the
fiduciaries of the healthcarepension fund and civil servants
pension fund.
But both the risk managers saiddo you have a track record?
They said no, we're going to dosome completely different
ecosystem investment et cetera.
And so they came back to me andthen we organized a long trip

(06:26):
for mobilizing thoseorganizations and at the peak
more than 60 persons wereworking on that Plan B fund.
Due to all kinds of reasons itdidn't succeed completely.
But PGM wrote a white piece ofpaper on these topics and they
proceed further on.
But I worked.

Speaker 1 (06:45):
Which, just for background, is a massive Dutch
pension fund which I don'tremember the billions they
control, but it's a whale in thespace.

Speaker 2 (06:55):
Let's say I worked for them in the 90s but
unfortunately it didn't succeed.
But I had several contacts withLester and then, some years
later, my daughter.
She had to read Plan B for herstudies.
She studied internationaldevelopment management,
sustainable value chain, andboth my daughters had two weeks

(07:17):
off in April or May and we said,okay, let's go holiday to the
US.
That time is much cheaper andwe had to choose between the
West side of the US, so thenature side of visiting some old
friends in the East side.
And we chose for the East sideand said to my daughter would
you love to visit Lester?

(07:38):
She said yes, I would love to.
So I asked Lester if you werewelcome and he said yes, please
join us, join me.
So we had a full evening withLester.
Lester told that evening.
She said well, civilization hasbeen went down not due to too
much CO2, but due to water.
And he said it's not about thedrinking water that is causing

(08:01):
the problem, but it's the longdistance transport of water to
nature.
That was the first time I heardabout that angle.
And do you remember?

Speaker 1 (08:12):
your reaction.
Do you remember when somebodysays something on this flying
river concept or something soout not out there, but let's say
not in the general vocabularyof institutional investors, or
let's say the space you wereworking on?
Do you remember what youthought that evening?

Speaker 2 (08:32):
At the evening.
I listened and I he was talkingabout long distance transport
of water, but he never mentionedthat that's on the Biotu pump.
So when I came back I workedalready with Peter Paul DeClyver
, the co-founder also ofGreenwater Cools.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
He's called a permaculture background and you
said Lester said this and this,and he immediately focused on
that click, or that's somethingthat's known in that space.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, and I knew that he was working on permaculture
and it was almost became thelandscape designer of the
Netherlands.
And I knew that he had a lot ofknowledge about how to control
the winds in the landscape withshelter, belts and edges etc.
And he already helped mydaughter for paper on high

(09:25):
school how to re-clean theSahara desert.
So I knew that he had a lot ofknowledge.
So I asked him can you tell meeverything you know about how
nature controls water?
So he told me about that andthen at the end of the day he
said I've got a hypothesis thatthe humans, by destroying nature

(09:47):
, has caused temperature rise.
That was the starting of alarge journey.
Because I said I believe you.
And he had also information onvery quantum level about what
the paper goes back to water andthen energy is being released
etc.
I said I believe you.
When I now go to the financialsector they call me a lunatic

(10:09):
Because nobody is thinking aboutthat.
So it was six years ago and thenbefore I knew it, I was playing
chess on 14 different boards,because it's really a holistic
view.
Then first we started with thephase transition of water vapor
to water, because then somethinghappens within the water
molecule and electron goes to alower energy state and infrared

(10:32):
radiation is going out.
So we thought, well, that'spart of the puzzle.
But then we learned about thework of Macri-Evan Korskov,
about the Berylter pump, andthen we started understanding
how the water cycle functions.
Then we saw what are thebuilding blocks of what's

(10:54):
happening with the water cycle.
Then we said the Earth has twoair conditioning systems and
it's one air conditioning systemthat's very passive when a sun
evaporates the water of theoceans and then the water vapor
goes up and you've got saltcrystals and then the water

(11:16):
vapor condenses to the saltcrystal, forming water droplets
in clouds.
That's all passive, but we havea very active air conditioning
system and instead of using saltcrystals as cloud nuclei for
the surface for water vapor toconnect to, those nuclei are
coming from organic aerosols,and those are produced by life

(11:40):
in the soil and the biodiversity.
So it's biodiversity thatproduces the organic aerosols
that form the nuclei where thewater vapor can connect to.
If you don't have life in thesoil and you don't have enough
biodiversity, you're missing oneessential building block
performing water droplets,performing very reflective

(12:03):
clouds.
Therefore, you have lesscooling capacity on Earth.
So what we have done on EarthDe-vegetated Earth, basically.
And if you go back to let'sstart from 18, so that's the
start of the second industrialrevolution then you can see OK,

(12:26):
we have a rising temperature.
It's not linear, but even arising temperature 1.2 degrees.
At the same time you see anincrease in carbon dioxide.
But you also see, from thatmoment on, when the welfare
increases, the amount of peopleincreases, and when there are
more people, you need also tofeed those people.

(12:49):
What we did, we started in thedisnerizing agriculture and we
destroyed a lot of forests forthat.
So you've got four lightsincreasing population,
increasing carbon dioxide,increasing temperature and an
increasing line of decreasingbiodiversity.
Those four lines are almost100% correlated, but correlation

(13:14):
is not causing an effect.
So if you think that everythingis caused by carbon dioxide,
you're wrong.
So, because there is anotherelement, if you take the, then I
have to visualize it by sound.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Yeah, we're audio.
Audio, so we speak with sound.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
But for example, if you take the energy balance of
Earth and it's a very simpleequation, so it's warming
elements minus cooling elements,is the temperature of Earth.
So let's start from thebeginning 1 minus 1 is 0.
I can increase the end resultplus 1, by increasing the

(13:51):
warming part, so 2 minus 1 isplus 1.
But then I can also come upwith plus 1 by decreasing
cooling capacity, so 1 minus 0is also plus 1.
But if those two are correlated, then you get the decreasing.
The increasing deforestationdecreases the cooling capacity,

(14:12):
so lowers the cooling capacity,but that's the same effect is
more warming.
So if you still are modelingthe rise of temperature, you
have a perfect fit with onlywith carbon dioxide, because
those two are almost correlatedwith each other increasing
welfare, and it's much easier tomeasure and we have the parts

(14:33):
per million.

Speaker 1 (14:34):
Somehow that became the single thing everybody is
looking or not everybody Mostpeople are focusing on, and
you're basically saying we'remissing a gigantic cooling
potential and a gigantic warmingactually not potential, but
what we already had over thelast decades and last 140 years
as well, which is, by diversity,literally life on this planet,

(14:57):
in the soil and on top of thesoil.
And unless we look at that,carbon is just not super so
relevant as we give it and as astage we give it at the moment,
and then when you say thatyou've got one big talk, when
you say that you're alreadybeing left out of the room with
most people, Because then youbecome climate denial.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
So you have to be very careful when you say, well,
it's not only carbon.
And then you said, okay, howare we going to translate this
to policymakers andinstitutional world?
So I'm a crop in theinstitutional world.
What I learned is that thosepension funds and insurance
companies there are systeminvestors, so that depends on
the system.

(15:41):
If the system is broken, theywill never get the end result
that they need for thepensioners.
So, okay, we're talking hereabout system risk.
When I was working for thepension fund in the 90s and
within strategy, I can rememberthat the social department we
had to calculate a hedge dollaragainst the time we had to kill

(16:05):
them.
So let's say we're already at aeuro, but that was before that
time.
We had the hedge dollar againstthe euro, but we didn't have
enough information.
So what we did is okay, we'regoing to minimize our regret.
That meant we're not going tohedge 100%, we're not going to
hedge 0%, we're going to hedge50%.

(16:25):
So we're in the middle.
So then we are minimizing ourregrets and I said, okay, wait a
minute, you can do where theknowledge we now have on the
road, by diversity and when weare right at loss of
biodiversity caused increase intemperature.
When you bring back thebiodiversity, you will lower the

(16:48):
temperature.
Then you can create a freeclimate insurance policy and you
can minimize your regrets.
How can you do that?
Well, it's very simple.
You have one choice to make Arewe going to restore nature, yes
or no?
If you're going to restorenature and we are right, nature
is also a cooling effect Thenit's hallelujah, because when

(17:12):
you restore nature, you willreach your climate goals much
faster, cheaper, even moresocial perspective and less risk
.
So, hallelujah.
If we are not right, there's noharm done whatsoever, because
during that process, ifsequestered harvest a lot of
carbon.
So there's no downside.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
There's no.
Like you're in the quadrant andthat is in the video as well.
Definitely link that below.
But there's no real downside,even if there's no cooling
effect, which we know there is.
But even if there's no coolingeffect, you still sequestered
all that carbon that you werevery worried about and did reach
your part of your climate goalsat least, and restored a lot of

(17:55):
nature and restored, for sure,a lot of social security, etc as
well.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Exactly, but the other branch.
If you don't restore nature,then the only best outcome is
well, there is no best outcomeabout the carbon sucking machine
.
You've done nothing and okay,well, hopefully we are wrong and
well, we didn't contributeanything.
But if we are right, then helpbrace loose, because then you're

(18:25):
too late.
And if it was indeedbiodiversity that plays a big
role in our temperature and thenyou lost the water cycles, and
that's already happening inEurope.
In Europe, Europe is one of themost worst places for the water
cycles.
We destroyed our biotrack pumpand if people don't know what

(18:47):
the biotrack pump is, when wehave those two building blocks
and then plants and trees, ifthey put transpire, like we do,
in sweat, all that water vaporand they can connect with
organic aerosols and theyconnect to water droplets, then
you get.
If you have a very healthybiodiversity and landscape and

(19:10):
the landscape is connected tolarge surface area, then you get
.
When those occurrences betweenthe water vapor and the organic
aerosols and nuclei, and youhave a lot of them, then you can
drop in air pressure.
When you call that drop in airpressure, you suck in the water,

(19:31):
the air, with the water vaporfrom the oceans inland and
that's what's called thebiotrack pump.
The conditions for that is thatyou need to have lots of
organic aerosols, a lot ofnuclei.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
So healthy life, healthy life on the soil, which
means healthy forests in manycases.
And when you look at Europe yousee large scale industrial
agriculture and, as we know,there is no life in the soil in
those areas, so no wonder wehave been having very irregular,
but probably also because it'sbeen such a long time, but very

(20:03):
irregular rain patterns, and Imean, there are stories we had
Milan, me and Mian on thepodcast as well like the stories
of the regular rainfall insummer, even in Spain not so
long ago, and the regularrainfall in certain places, and
somehow that seems completelyoff and you're saying that
simply has to do with the scaleof the de-vegetation or the life

(20:25):
thing that's not worked, but ofthe surface area in Europe.
That, of course, has been goingon since the Romans and
probably before.
That's why we're in such a badshape in terms of water cycles,
and you don't have to look atthe news.
We're recording this beginningof the summer in 2023, depending
on when you listen to this, butit's already been a very
extreme year until now.

(20:46):
We're only halfway through.

Speaker 2 (20:51):
It's the only element that is causing long distance
transport of water.
You've got a coriolis cyclesensor that's turning off Earth,
and you've got the landscape,and we've got the Alps in Europe
.
So all influences, but if youdestroy nature, then you don't
have the active role anymorewithin that water cycle.

(21:14):
You're talking about the Romans.
What we did, we did somehistory.
So the first thing we did whenwe say, okay, wait a minute, if
deforestation has an influenceon temperature, let's look
before 1880.
So because then we didn't emitthat?

Speaker 1 (21:34):
amount of carbon.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
So we should see also an influence of deforestation
temperature and indeed you seethat.
So from the Roman Empire andgoing back to 3000 years to 2000
years, you see that a growingpopulation was deforestation.
Then you have to take intoaccount that you think, well,

(21:56):
there are not that many people,but at that time for feeding one
person you needed much moreland than you now have nowadays
have.
So growing population led todeforestation and you see the
patterns changing in rainfalland when there were diseases,

(22:17):
for example.
A very big, well-known exampleis that we had a mid-even warm
period in the 14th century andafter that what we called the
ice age.
That's not the correct term,but people know it like that
yeah.
But what happened?

(22:37):
We had the mid-even warm periodand in 1550, the plague hit
Europe.
And the plague came from Asiaapart.
And the factor why the plaguehits human population was that
the habitat of the virus of theplague could not live any longer

(23:00):
on an animal.
So humans destroyed the habitatand the plague went to the
humans.
Then the plague hits Europe in1350.
Then you can read in the booksof the landowners that there
were not enough people to workon the land and the forest came
back.
And when the forest came back,you see a change in rain

(23:23):
patterns.
Then, 150 years later, columbus, in between brackets,
discovered America, brought somediseases with them to America
and 95% of the people over theredied.
They didn't have books of thelandowners, they had other

(23:43):
resources.
That also shows that rainfallcame back and temperature drops
and it's not always in one place, but it's connected with each
other and it also has yeah, whenyou sum it up, it has a global
effect.
So we can pinpoint exactly whenthere is a temperature rise due

(24:06):
to deforestation and loweringin temperature due to the
decrease in population.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
And then you bring this reality to, let's say, the
boardrooms and the risk and thescenario planners, the risk
offices of institutionalinvestors, how we already
mentioned the language we shoulduse, like minimizing regret,
like how does that?

(24:31):
How is the response when you'vebeen for sure?
And in conversations like howis the response to, let's say,
framing this message in a muchmore institutional language way,
like how do people respond tothat that are in the positions
of resources.

Speaker 2 (24:56):
And then you're talking really about the system
thinking, because if you don'tsee how the system works, then
you never see how your valuechain is at risk.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
You're meaning the system of the financial system
or the system of the welfaresystem.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
Both.
So if you don't see how thebiodiversity system works, how
the value chain is, then youwill never see the real risk of
companies.
So take Unilever or Heineken orwhatever.
If you don't know that thewater cycle is related to those
elements, you will never makethe right judgment on Heineken.

(25:35):
But that's not.
You can make a judgment, butthen you still haven't solved
the problem.
Because from a systemperspective, it's called an
archetype error.
It's called, we all know, thetragedy of the comments.
So in this case, if you have atragedy of the comments, that's
a global one, global common youalso look for global solutions.

(25:59):
So when you're an investor andyou see that you have a system
risk that's called the tragedyof the commons then you have to
align a lot of players.
So it's not only that thecompanies have to realize that
they have to take care of theirbiodiversity, but it's also that

(26:19):
the field chain has to worktogether, because it's not only
if you start in the middle ofEurope, you'll never restore the
biotic pump.
So you need to work togetherwith if this, france with
Belgium or Germany with theNetherlands, or even UK, the
Netherlands and Germany.
You have to work together onrestoring those biotic pumps.

(26:42):
If you take, for example, thediscussion we have now in the
Netherlands about nitrogen andnitrogen is a problem because it
hurts biodiversity, but alsothe large scale
industrialization of agriculturecausing biodiversity problems.
But if farmers are not beingrewarded for maintaining the

(27:03):
life in the soil because that'sa huge value, then they will not
look at it.
Of course, regenerative haveall kinds of advantages, but if
you don't know the big value,then governments will not say
wait a minute, why should not bein the Netherlands and Germany?
Restore biodiversity and putall the carbon into the soil and

(27:27):
in life on top of it and let'smake that our priority on
climate and let's pay thefarmers for restoring the
biodiversity.
Bring together the supermarketsand saying wait a minute, you
need to have cream water insideyour products my revision but
you cannot see that because it'shearing but I'd like to have

(27:49):
that heineken have cream waterinside and that the tank can
serve real cool beer.
And if I eat an ice cream of aunit level, it's a real cool ice
cream because there's creamwater inside.
So if you have on the productsin supermarkets, this is a real
cool product and in thesupermarkets I have agreement

(28:13):
with you never like please giveus the cream cream cool product.
Then you need still do theinvestments and what we targeted
for during the plan B funds, aswe said to Paul from from from
you never that time.
You know exactly where in yourfairy chain to make your fairy

(28:34):
chain more sustainable, butthat's not on your balance sheet
, so you're not going to do theinvestment.
He said, let's let us do theinvestments in the value chain.
Yeah, so if you know you needto have regenerative agriculture
in your value chain and ittakes the investments, let us do

(28:55):
the investments as pensionfunds, on the one condition we
do the investments and you takethe products from the, from the
land that we are regenerating.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
When you're doing so, you lower the assets address
for the investments Because theagreement is in place, which
we've seen with renewable energy, that unlocked the market, or
at least large scale, the powerpurchase agreements, etc.
What was the reaction?
Because that's the role theycan play, or they should
potentially play, to unlocklarge scale regeneration, the

(29:32):
universe, the big place.
Maybe this was too early aswell, but what was?
It seems so logical that that'sthe role.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
And at that time it was too soon and there was also
some cultural differencesbetween the players involved in
the in the plant beef fundswhere we could have sold to
Japanese companies all kinds ofreasons and I think we were a
little bit too soon.
But this one additional stepyou have to make.
It's not that nowadays peopleare talking about engagement, so

(30:02):
we as investors have to engagewith companies that are not
doing the right thing.
I think we should have adifferent kind of engagement.
You should select the frontrunners that are doing it.
Try to do the best.
Instead of engaging, we shouldstand next to each other, then
knock on the doors of the nextone in the value chain or on the

(30:23):
doors of the governments, justto change the rules of the game.
If you don't change the rulesof the game, you will never
succeed.
Because if there is no levelplaying field on this, then it
will be hard to get the rightrisk return profile.
And if you take the risk returnprofile returns of agriculture

(30:44):
of course you can findinvestments that will fit your
profile.
But if you're looking atefficient frontier, too many of
those investments are in theright bottom corner.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
So if you risk return profile and normally Just for
people not completelycomfortable with that, meaning
basically high risk because notrack record or very little
track record, and low return,which is not the place where you
want to be, or not the placewhere hundreds of millions, if
not billions, will flow to.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Exactly, but the thing is that activity is fully
aligned with the future goals.

Speaker 1 (31:22):
With the minimized regrets.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
But the investment industry is saying wait a minute
, you've got here 100% alignedactivity with the future, but
the market society is notrewarding this activity
accordingly.
So that means that there issomething going wrong.
And then you need to haveconfidence in place.

(31:44):
It can be legal, fiscal, orhave to do planning, design or
trade agreements, etc.
So that's what you need to haveon board.
So if you need to have acoalition, so when you start an
investment, then the supermarketand the union levels they knock

(32:05):
on the door of the government.
And then you go to Europe, toEuropean Union, for example, and
we go to front stimulants andsay wait a minute, let's solve
the climate problem, but let'sfocus also on the droughts in
Europe, because that's a realbig problem at the moment and
what is it worth for you torestore that?

(32:26):
Then the next step can be thatyou're going to evaluate the
real value of life in the soil.
When that's been done, thenyou're going to reward the
farmers for creating a healthysoil and at this moment, if you

(32:47):
look at regenerative, there areso many things going on about.
People say, well, it's notscalable or whatever.
You need to have the rightmindset for doing so and if it
takes that you have a differentkind of of agriculture, perhaps

(33:09):
you have to organize a differentthing and perhaps you need more
people in that space.
It should be no problem becauseif nature is really important,
then you should pay the peoplethat is working in nature.
Pay a model, or I do say thename is an income, that's a fair

(33:31):
income.

Speaker 1 (33:34):
And do you see what's the first step there?
Is it getting the broadercoalition, let's say, of
institutional investors,convinced that there would be
nice of an insurance policy tokeep this system, or the system
they depend on, going?
Is it the government or willthey?
Or government in general,regulation or will they follow

(33:56):
usually after these things?
Or what's the first angle weneed to take, or listeners
should take?

Speaker 2 (34:06):
First of all, it's that the decision makers have to
make a paradigm shift, andthat's the most hardest thing to
do.
So you need to get out of yourcomfort zone that there's not
only carbon dioxide, and youneed to look into minimizing
regrets approach.

(34:26):
You say wait a minute.
Okay, we're not certain 100%,but we're also not 100% certain
about carbon dioxide.
You think that you're certain,but there are so many question
marks, whatever.
But you don't want to gamblewith the future.

Speaker 1 (34:46):
So that's the first thing, so that's the mindset we
need to make sure about how manyof these decision makers are
there, like, let's say, let'stake the financial system and
Europe 2030, 50, how many peopleare there that are really and,
let's say, high up in the tree?
And I mean it's very difficultto shift mindsets that we see

(35:07):
constantly, not only with landstewards and farmers, like I
think Gabe Brown keeps sayingthe most difficult piece of real
estate is between your ears butit also seems doable,
especially with people that are,or that should think in risks
and should think in minimizingrisk or at least having a plan B
, literally not that intended,or at least another scenario.
Let's say we're not completelyright, 100% right, about carbon.

(35:30):
Let's work on with a tiny 90%of the investments.
Let's work on another scenario,but, like it should be doable
to reach these 50 people, 100people or whatever the number is
to significantly shift theneedle or not.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
I think you're absolutely correct.
So if you take Europe, you takeFrance, Timomance and you take
Macron.
You name the largest pensionfunds, you take CEO of Unilever.

Speaker 1 (36:06):
Oh careful.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
And you also have a mix of capital, and so it's not
only pension capital andinsurance capital, but also
family offices, but alsodevelopment money, like the FBO
development that's developmentbank.
So you have a mix of capital.
You've got governments on board, you've got agricultural sector
on board, you've got Unileveron board, and we bring those

(36:35):
together and say wait a minute,we can minimize our requests,
let's create a free climateinsurance policy.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
Yeah, because it seems like at least Regen Ag,
for whatever it's worth ishitting that nerve Like nothing
else in food and ag has hit sofar and it's only building, like
you can see the TV shows goingonline.
I think today yeah, it's the14th Benedict Bezos show will go
on.
Farmer Rebellion.
The new Kiss the Ground iscoming out.

(37:05):
Common Ground just premiered.
So I think the attention, let'ssay for soil, agriculture et
cetera not talking about thebigger story, but specifically
on that is only growing.
I see big institutional playerson the food space making
commitments that I have no ideahow to feel, but somehow this
seems to be at least a few bowlsare rolling.

(37:25):
And now the question is how dowe make sure that the bigger
story on cooling and water orthe other, let's say even a
bigger story, is not lost in theprocess?
But at least there's something,or at least it feels there's
much more attention for daysthan organic ever had or other
systems, chains ever evermanaged to do so.
So there's something seems tobe at least to get the CEOs et

(37:49):
cetera excited.
Now the question is how far canwe push it?

Speaker 2 (37:55):
Well, I didn't went to the financial sector six
years ago because I said whenyou mentioned, if I do so, I
have to prove it.
So I said to people I would doa due diligence on it.
So after six years we have now25,000 hours of research in it.
We have 450 scientific papersthat support the pieces.

(38:16):
When you know where to look forit, it's easy to find.
But the next step, that's muchmore difficult because we have
funded ourselves.
The next step is that you aboutstorytelling.
You know that it's verydifficult to tell a story.
It's easy to tell a story intwo hours, but it's very

(38:38):
difficult to tell a story in 10seconds.
It's more difficult to dividepeople.
And then you have to prove allthe knowledge.
We have all the scientificpapers, but we are not at the
university.
We don't have a group ofstudents that are working on
here.
I've got no chat CPT that canhelp me.
But you need to have also thescientific backgrounds.

(39:03):
But you don't want to have anIPCC.
You cannot wait that thescientific community takes five,
ten years for showing realproof.
No, you have to act onuncertainty.
What we want to do with a set upof a foundation, we want to
make an open source knowledgeplatform, but you need fine
funding for that for doing so.

(39:26):
People can work on it together,on creating the knowledge and
how the system is working.
Also, that's quite recently dueto the development of JetGPT.
Now everybody knows a littlebit about our large language
models for working, etc.
What we want to do is make aknowledge system that will

(39:50):
harvest all the new researchconnected to the thesis.
The next step will be that wecreate a neural network that can
make decisions what to do inEurope.
There is now things going on.
If people listening to you lookup what Omniverse is doing from

(40:13):
NVIDIA, that's mind blowing.
If you think JetGPT is big,have a look at Omniverse of
NVIDIA what they can do.
They can make almost real time.
They make a factory with allrobots in it and they simulate
it.
But you can also do that whatthe graphic charts are doing for
role playing in games.

(40:33):
They can simulate large servicearea almost real time.
When we take the satellite dataand Google Earth, we take the
mapping of Europe, we connectall the lessons we learned from
permaculture how to designlandscapes, integrate multiple

(40:54):
cash flows in it and designrules.
You've got a neural networkcoming out of all the knowledge
that we have.
You connect it with NVIDIAOmniverse and you take all the
stakeholders involved the cities, the farmers, etc.
You can build real time,virtual how the landscape will
look like and you can playalmost a game.

(41:15):
That's already possible.
Then you can take into account.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
A farmville but then on Europe level to play and I'm
doing air quotes because it'snot playing what happens if you
restore where and how and whatand what it triggers into?
Of course not 100% perfect,whatever we mean with 100%, but
in a way as good, you think,okay, if we restore here, it

(41:43):
triggers something there.
Or if we Because of course wehave to start somewhere, we have
to choose where to putunlimited resources and we have
to figure out where to evenstart and how to start and what
are the acupuncture points, whatare the crucial ones to do
first, what are the second layer, the third layer, and, of
course, there's very littleregret.
There's just regret that youstarted somewhere instead of

(42:04):
another place or you startedwith something instead of
another approach.
It's not that we do a very heavygeoengineering and you have all
kinds of side effects.
We're restoring nature here,which, even if you don't get the
cooling effect and even if youdon't get the carbon effect, it
still has a lot of biodiversityeffects, which is good.
To begin with, you're sayingwe're very close, if not there,

(42:24):
with figuring out.
Okay, tell us where to start inEurope.
If I want these outcomes, whereshould I start and with what
should I start?
And then we can get going.
Two years ago.
That wasn't possible a year ago.
This is as fresh as we can talkbasically.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
In the last six weeks .
Development on AI is going sorapidly fast.
It's insane.
Peter Paul, the co-founder healready had a design database of
how to design landscapesaccording to certain principles.
Now we can distract thoseprinciples out of a lot of

(43:04):
knowledge, create a neuralnetwork that can make decisions,
and we can check the neuralnetwork if it's doing a proper
job.
We can now add multiple layers.
I started quantitative businesseconomics and I made a lot of
models, and then you have totake into account optimization.

Speaker 1 (43:24):
How excited are you about this?
In a sense, I saw somebodyyesterday using actually Peter
of the ecosystem restorationcommunities.
How close is this to our iPhonemoment?
Quote, unquote, the moment thatthere's a before and after,
like 10 years, 20 years later welook at okay, this was do you

(43:46):
feel like me?

Speaker 2 (43:48):
I think we're in it Once more.
Look at the omniverse.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
I'll put it below the links below and you will see
whenever you listen to this.
It would have already changed,but in your moment it will
probably also feel like magic.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Then your mind will be blown away.
When we wrote four years agoour roadmap, we put in this kind
of element, but we thought,okay, that will take a long,
long, long time.
Suddenly, I see all thebuilding blocks that we need for
realizing it.

(44:26):
Then we now have to compute thepower.
We know how things influenceeach other.
If we can integrate theeconomics, the social parts, the
nature elements and combine it,we can show what's coming out
of it.

(44:46):
Then we say wait a minute, butfrom a minimizing regrets
perspective.
We never have any regretswhatsoever.
Of course, in the end it'salways a social problem because
somebody has to pay the bill.
Underlying all those challengeswe nowadays have is perhaps one

(45:09):
element is about inequality.
Who's going to pay the bill?
If people with low income arepaying the bill or they cannot
afford healthy food in thestores, then we have a big
problem.
This should be a basic needthat you can eat green water
products.
If we can realize you can eatgreen water products in the

(45:34):
supermarket, then you have a lotof social inclusion created in
Europe.
The same thing occurs for Africa, because if you look from a
global perspective, africa andof course also the Amazon, but
also Africa is sitting on hugecooling power because it's a

(45:59):
very large service area.
There was a lot of forest in it.
We can restore a lot of forest.
My daughter went to Ethiopia.
The northern part in Ethiopiatries to do their best in
restoring nature, but it's notconnected to the oceans.

(46:19):
You need to use the greeneryand connect it to the ocean, so
to Kenya and Sudan and theEurotrea.
You work together.
Then you lower the assetaddress for the institutional
investors, for the global world.
What happens if you usedevelopment money for that?

(46:42):
First of all, you create socialbenefits over there so people
are having a better income,better life.
You get less climate migrationto Europe.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Then suddenly the right wing parties in Europe are
saying, oh, climate yeah andeveryone is doing it right,
they're not interested inrestoring and I think there's
some weirdness going on there.
But let's go one step back.
What are, if there are butthere are always risks using
these new AI neural networks forthis kind of decisions?

(47:18):
You said we have to check.
Are we even able to check to doit?
Or are you saying we'rerestoring the graded land, as
most of it is degraded, so therisks are that we just don't
regenerate it enough?
What are potential risksdisplaying that was advocated
here with jumping on this newtechnology to kickstart, not

(47:42):
only on the continent of Africa,obviously, but also on the
European continent?
Are there risks?
What do you fear most when youlook at this?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
From an AI point of view, there's no risk involved
in that.
Ai will kill us because we areimplementing biodiversity in
Europe.
So that's no risk involved,because why we need AI on this
topic is because it's verycomplex and you have to make

(48:13):
decisions on so many levels thatit's impossible for humans to
to grab to see it.

Speaker 1 (48:20):
We're not smart enough to do this.
Yeah, we cannot grab all thelevels in the different models
that we tried to, but it justdoesn't work.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
But when you see the outcome of it, then you
understand it and then you canalso check.
So if you're an expert onpermaculture and you see the
outcome, you can immediatelycheck is this correct, yes or no
?
But you cannot.
It's almost impossible todesign Europe in your own.
As a person, you know everydesign element, but it will take

(48:51):
years if it's not possiblebecause there's so many
stakeholders involved and theyhave all their inputs.
So when you build that system,every city, every community,
every can put in the desires butwhat are the stakes that are at

(49:12):
play in that region?
And then you can make decisionsand trade-offs and the people
locally they can understandperfectly what the trade-offs
are, but we are not capable ofcollecting all those trade-offs
in our minds.
That's impossible.
Figure out the optimum.

(49:34):
Yeah, so it's more that we'reusing the AI, the decision
methodology, that AI is forcoming up with solutions.
And if we say, wait a minute, wewant to tweak it a little bit,
then we have to compute thepower to simulate what those
tweaks mean and then you alsocan see wait a minute, this is

(49:56):
the amount of money that we need, this kind of stage money.
We need a venture capital overhere because we need to develop
new technologies, or we havegrowth money over here, or we
need loans, or we need subsidiesetc over there, and that's more
from a system point of view.
And then, from the system pointof view, you will see okay,

(50:18):
these are the leverage points.
So if we solve these kinds ofproblems and etc.
We have a regulation on thistopic, then we will see that we
don't have problems insupermarkets, that cheap food
based on fossil fuel iscompeting with a green water
product, and that's not fair,because green water products

(50:42):
have all kinds of benefits andthe cheap fossil fuel food
products don't have.
And then also we've gotregulations in Europe and that's
telling pension funds that haveto report on what they're doing

(51:04):
on sustainability.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
Sorry, I see listeners who cannot see it, but
I see some frustration withMarcel.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
As long as companies are not reporting on what they
are doing, how can you, aspension funds, make the right
decision?
And the other thing is, as longas we're playing with the wrong
rules of the game, it doesn'tmatter what I'm doing, because
the outcome is still wrong.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
It's still insufficient.
Yeah, and I want to beconscious of your time as well,
and I have a few final questionsI always like to ask, which
usually lead to more questions,so let's try to get in there and
see where we get to.
What would be your main messageto the financial or to the
let's say there's a room ofinvestors, not necessarily

(51:57):
institutional capital, but moreprivate capital, which still
could be large family offices,etc.
But people that are investingquote, unquote, their own money
and should be able to make quickdecisions.
And what would be, of course,without giving investment advice
, but what would be your mainmessage to them?
Like, look, look here, digdeeper here or go and lobby
there?
Like, what would be your mainmessage if they walk out of the

(52:20):
theater where we were holdingthis in person?

Speaker 2 (52:31):
I saw a presentation of ICOS PARC by PMBRIHMIC and
they did an ecosystem approach.
So I think they were talkingabout fishery make it more
sustainable but also about youneed to give the fish different
proteins.
We look for insects and thoseinsects have to be produced.

(52:52):
Also, they were looking forsupermarkets that want to buy
the fish that are coming out ofthe felwitching.
So if I were a private investor, then I would look for a
coalition on perhaps a smallerscale, but I would look in those
kinds of solutions.
So, okay, I know, if you want tocontribute and I want to have

(53:15):
safe felwitching, I need to havebiodiversity in it, but the
felwitching has to bereconnected to the oceans and
inland.
The water cycle needs to betaken into care.
I need to have regenerativeagriculture in place, but I also
need to have the supermarketsthat will buy.
It Depends on how big you areas a private investor.

(53:37):
If you're not big enough, Ishould work together with other
private investors so that youhave enough scale.
But I would do an ecosysteminvestment and that the total
portfolio fits the system andthen look for where are the
leverage points within it, andsome leverage points need

(53:59):
venture capital Some early stage.
Then you see, okay, we have todevelop that and others need
growth capital.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
So make a mix of different capitals in the
ecosystem and literally you'resaying a system, but it could
also be literally connecting theoceans or a large water body
with wherever you're investing,land-based with the market,
because otherwise you're justtrying to fix a small piece of
the value chain or value web, asEthan Soloviev is going to

(54:31):
correct me.
So unless you do that, you'rejust going to be trying to fight
a system that's not moving inthe right quote unquote
direction.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
And I think I talked to Frank from Burning once that
he's been making said you shouldtry to combine large capital
money from people in the streetwith the family offices, because
there is now a bridge betweenthose two.
But from an institutional pointof view it's not always easy to

(55:03):
do what a private investor does.
So, yes, short lines of thedecision making, etc.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
In many cases it is more of an end or run by a small
family that can just decideBecause they'll take forever,
but once they go, they go.

Speaker 2 (55:19):
So same as for an institutional pension.
It takes forever, but if theyare there, then they were
investing in it.
Sometimes you need differentkinds of money in different
stages and connected to eachother, and I also want to have
on board the development banks,because they have different

(55:42):
kinds of capital than theprivate people.

Speaker 1 (55:48):
If I were a private investor, yeah, well that's
actually the next bridge is,let's say, you had a billion
euros I on purpose asked thequestion with nine zeros, so a
lot of money.
It needed to have a return atsome point, but could be
extremely long term, if you sodesire.
How would you put that to work?

(56:08):
So if we flip the conversation,actually you would be in charge
.
You want a lottery or whateverhappened to you, but suddenly
you're in charge of a billioneuros.
What would you do?

Speaker 2 (56:20):
If I had a free hand of doing a billion euros and I'm
not I would still do the same.
I would still do an ecosystemapproach.
I would do a full system screenof the value chain.
If I see risk involved if youtake to the food production and

(56:43):
I see water risk involved andwater risk related to
biodiversity I need to have thaton my radar screen.
Then I've got two options.
I can make sure those risks arenot in my portfolio or I can
see an opportunity.
We can see the opportunity byimproving the value chain.

(57:05):
But then perhaps one billion isnot enough.
But then I have to worktogether with other investment
funds that also have thosecapabilities and work together.
Then I could act.
And I know, for example, thatUnilever has one billion euros
to spend for the coming 10 yearson innovative investments.

(57:29):
That's 100 million every year.
Then I could work together withUnilever and say wait a minute,
these are the innovations weneed to do or the improvements.
I want to do it in the valuechain, but I like your money
also involved.
Then I knock on the door.
If it's in Africa, I knock onthe door of the development bank

(57:51):
for getting some money on board.
Then I make a mix of differentkinds of money in different
kinds of stages.
Now I would diversify myportfolio for one billion across
multiple countries, multipleecosystems, together with
multiple players involved.

(58:12):
I also want to make sure thatin the end or not in the end,
but top of it the smallholderfarmers are playing a very
important role in it and thatthey are rewarded fairly in it.
I know that brewery needs a lotof input from farmers.

(58:35):
Make sure that the brewery usesalso smallholder farmers in a
fair way.
If those farmers need to haveequipment for restoring
biodiversity, then let's bringit on the table, but also
together with development money,because if there is a value of
death in the beginning for thosefarmers, let's secure those

(59:00):
value of death with developmentmoney.
That will be still from a onebillion dollar euro perspective,
but I would still do anecosystem.
I would make sure that if thereis risk involved, or I can
manage it or I avoid it, butlet's say I want to restore it,
so I need to take the risk andmake sure that I improve it.

(59:24):
If the challenge is too big, Ineed to work together with other
investors, of course, when wehave enough money on the table.
As I always say during atransition, big money can act as
a friendly dictator If peopleare fighting in the room and not
solving a problem.

(59:45):
What I learned when I wasworking for pension funds is
that if you're fighting, we'renot going to invest.
Then perspective changes.
If you give the peopleperspective that investment
money will be there and the onlything is they have to work
together, then you can be afriendly dictator, but you

(01:00:09):
should be also, as a biginvestor, be part of the process
of the transition.
So you should be involved insetting up the plans, working
together with unilethers,working together with small
farmers, etc.
Of course that's not for a CEO,but your investment company
should work together in thetransitions, the projects etc.

(01:00:32):
Before you do the investment.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Would you use Omniverse or something similar
to pick where or how would youapproach the, because it's a lot
of money and it's nothing atthe same time?
How would you approach where tostart or where to focus first?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
To start, I don't think I need Omniverse, because
you have some design principlesthat you need to have.
To restore the bladder pump,you need to have healthy soil,
so you can already look forwhere are the best areas and
where did the bladder pumpalready work and is decreasing

(01:01:19):
in power or where did it workbefore.
Then you already know where tolook for.
Mackeva and Korskov alreadyhave nice pictures of where the
bladder pumps.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
Yeah, we'll have an analysis on soon.
So there's already, let's say,a hotspot map of where what's
the most not pressing, but mostinteresting places to start soon
or yesterday.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
And there's one tiny one, a very big elephant in the
room.
That's about culture andperception about eating food and
proteins, because if you touchthe meat on a plate of a person,

(01:02:09):
then they get all kinds ofreactions.
There are more and more peoplethat are vegan nowadays, but if
you want to save the world, youneed to eat meat because you
need to have animals in thelandscape.
Otherwise you don't havebiodiversity in the soil and no
life in the soil.
You need to eat a right meat.

Speaker 1 (01:02:31):
I'd say for our audience that's not a
controversial message at all.
We've had a long list of it'snot the cow, it's the how,
People, not literally the rightsof the book.
They will come at some point.
But the integration of animals,I think, is always number four
or five on the regenerativepractices list.
But done well.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
But it's still in the perception of decision makers,
because at least in theNetherlands, if you touch you
mention a different diary eatingmeat, let us meat, or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
then you get the four right wings mobilized and on
the other, side, if you mentionto anybody almost in
sustainability that backdefinition seems to say lately
that sustainability is no meatand you say, yeah, there might
be a role for animals, you alsoget the same reaction, but just
from the other side.
So it's a very hot topic.
So I try to frame it reallywell or avoid, because you lose

(01:03:32):
people immediately.
They stop listening from secondsentence to and we cannot have
that.

Speaker 2 (01:03:39):
This is something we have taken into account.
So we need a very goodstorytelling that can tell the
story in a proper way that canbe understood by a big audience
from left to right.
And that's a real skill,because if we are not able to

(01:04:00):
tell the story from left toright and from low income to
high income people, then we willnot succeed, and so that's a
really big part of the story,that storytelling.
I can solve the problem, but Icannot solve the things between
the ears of people.
I can technically solve it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
We're there now Like we're literally.
People are listening to thisand we're in their ears, so
we're doing our best byliterally recording this and
sending this, because people arelistening in their cars or with
their headset and on long walksand runs while they're painting
.
We've had many stories andactually send us emails.
You can find a link through thewebsite where you're listening

(01:04:43):
to this, because this is anattempt a podcast is very
interesting for that to change abit of that real estate between
your ears.
So let us know if that'sworking or not.
And as a final question, if youhad a magic wand and you could
change one thing overnight, Ihave some ideas what you might
say, but you might go completelyinto another direction.
What would that one wish?

(01:05:04):
That one thing you could changeovernight.
What would that be?

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Yeah, that people like long, long, long time ago
somebody said that the sun wasnot turning around Earth, but
Earth was turning around the sun.
It's a little bit like that.
It's not only carbon, but it'salso water and biodiversity.
So if you can change themindset of people on that topic,

(01:05:36):
maybe you have a differentmindset than you.
So in the Netherlands, one ofthe biggest philosophers we had
in the last 75 years, and hesaid and he could also play a
little bit of football he saidwell, you only understand it
when you see it.
And that was the young cry, forI don't know how many people

(01:05:58):
still know young cry for in thisworld, but when you understand
it, you see it, or when you seeit, you understand it.
And that's so.
If I have a magic wand, itwould be that people see the
role of water and biodiversityand that it's not only carbon,
because without water you don'thave any carbon storage in the

(01:06:19):
soil whatsoever.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
And with that carbon, you don't have any water
storage in the soil, so they'reintimately linked.
Nobody's saying here just torepeat that we're not denying
climate change, we're notdenying the role of carbon there
.
We're just saying, just to besure, let's look beyond.
There's a lot of researchsupporting that and we might
tackle the carbon piece in theprocess.

(01:06:42):
So let's broaden our scope andstart focusing on which is
exactly why we're recording thiswater cycle series to really
focus on the water piece, whichhas been extremely under
spotlighted, which is not a wordundervalued, even in any

(01:07:03):
discussion.
Everything is about carbon andcarbon equivalent, and so let's
see it to a equivalent.
So let's make sure we try toswitch that narrative.
I want to thank you so much foryour time, for coming here and
for the work you do, and wishyou all the luck with that and
changing the mindset of theinstitutional players.
It's not an easy feat, but very, very fundamental.
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
My pleasure and thank you for having me and good luck
with your podcast.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Thank you so much for listening all the way to the
end.
For the show notes and links wediscussed in this episode,
check out our website Investingin regenderwegerkotjecom forward
slash posts.
If you liked this episode, whynot share it with a friend or
give us a rating on ApplePodcasts?
That really helps.
Thanks again and see you nexttime.

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239 Marcel de Berg - Water is a more important cooling factor than the heat of carbon

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}239 Marcel de Berg - Water is a more important cooling factor than the heat of carbon