The Foundation Beneath Our Feet

This Earth Day Alejandro Tobon-Amaya reminds us that urgency isn’t enough. True progress means rethinking how we define growth, manage risk, and measure value.

Every Earth Day brings renewed attention to the environmental crisis—but urgency alone isn’t a strategy. Progress requires shifting how we think about growth, risk, and value. That means re-examining the systems that underpin our economies and the assumptions that guide investment decisions.

Natural Capital: The Missing Foundation

One of the clearest starting points is natural capital: the ecosystems and environmental assets that sustain life and support economic activity. Clean air, water filtration, carbon storage, soil fertility—these are not just background conditions. They are essential infrastructure. However, because they often operate outside of markets and don’t generate easily quantifiable returns, they remain consistently undervalued and underfunded.

Nature-Based Solutions: From Concept to Climate Strategy

The idea of natural capital isn’t new, but its practical application is gaining momentum. There is growing recognition that restoring and maintaining ecosystems—through initiatives like mangrove rehabilitation, regenerative agriculture, or improved forest management—isn’t just about conservation. Rather, it’s a cost-effective climate strategy. In fact, many nature-based approaches outperform engineered solutions on both cost and scalability.

Still, turning ecological value into investable models is not straightforward. Natural systems don’t deliver returns on a quarterly basis. The benefits of ecosystem restoration—climate mitigation, biodiversity gains, stronger community resilience—tend to unfold over long timeframes and across multiple stakeholders. This doesn’t fit neatly into conventional investment frameworks focused on short-term, individual outcomes.

Unlocking Capital: Carbon Markets and Blended Finance

Yet progress is happening. The voluntary carbon market, for example, has helped drive significant investment into nature-based solutions. Though imperfect, it has brought attention and capital to landscapes that were previously overlooked. As methodologies improve, and as integrity standards are strengthened, this market has the potential to direct billions of dollars into sustainable land use.

Beyond carbon markets, blended finance is playing a key role in closing the gap between early-stage ecosystem restoration projects and private capital. By using public or philanthropic funds to absorb early risks, these structures make projects more attractive to commercial investors. The result is a more realistic pathway for long-term investment in nature—one that recognizes both its complexity and its value.

Importantly, natural capital cannot be managed in isolation. Thinking in terms of systems—rather than stand-alone projects—helps us move beyond technical fixes and toward long-term functionality. Ecosystems are interconnected. Soil health affects water quality. Forest cover influences rainfall patterns. Pollinators impact food systems. Designing for this kind of interdependence improves the resilience and productivity of landscapes over time.

This systems thinking is especially relevant as climate-related risks intensify. Whether it’s drought, flooding, wildfires, or ecosystem collapse, the ability to withstand and recover from shocks is directly tied to the integrity of our natural systems. In that sense, investing in ecosystems is not just about avoiding environmental harm—it’s about building long-term resilience into our economic and social foundations.

From Challenges to Mindset Shifts

Like many working in this space, I recognize the challenges ahead. Natural capital often competes for attention with more conventional forms of infrastructure. The benefits are harder to quantify. The timelines are longer. And the impacts are often diffuse. Nevertheless, there is growing momentum to address these barriers. Investors, policymakers, and practitioners are developing better tools for measuring impact, assessing risk, and integrating nature into financial and planning decisions.

What’s needed now is a shift in mindset—from treating nature as an externality to recognizing it as an asset. Admittedly, that shift won’t happen overnight, but it is already underway. From accounting frameworks to corporate disclosures to fund-level strategies, we’re beginning to see natural capital integrated into decision-making in more meaningful ways.

Earth Day and Beyond: Aligning Systems with Ecological Reality

This Earth Day, the focus shouldn’t be on vague calls for action or narrow conversations about offsets. Instead, it should be about realigning our systems—financial, regulatory, and institutional—to reflect ecological reality. Climate action isn’t just about emissions. It’s about protecting the living systems that store carbon, regulate water, produce food, and support life.

If we want a stable, livable future, we need to invest in the systems that make it possible. That means valuing ecosystems not as sentimental ideals or background scenery, but as critical infrastructure. And it means designing capital flows, incentives, and policies that treat nature as the foundational asset that it is.