Ecological instability, water scarcity, and biodiversity loss are emerging as material financial risks, driving energy majors toward natural capital restoration to ensure systemic economic resilience.
Rather than viewing environmental restoration as a compliance burden, forward-looking operators are leveraging natural capital to safeguard long-term economic resilience and protect core balance sheets from severe systemic devaluation.
Lamara Heartwell, the great-granddaughter of Exxon co-founder William Stamps Farish, environmental advocate and OurOrigin.earth co-founder, bridges industrial heritage with future capital allocation.
In an exclusive interview with OGN energy magazine, Heartwell says: “Around the world, trillions of dollars will be invested in remediation, restoration and infrastructure transition over coming decades. Those expenditures should not simply be viewed as liabilities, they can become investments that generate ecological, economic and community value.”
She suggest that traditional energy boards incorporating ecological science into governance will successfully convert legacy remediation costs into sustainable asset creation across global energy markets.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
Given your lineage tied to the foundation of Exxon, how do you assess the long-term risk profile and capital devaluation of traditional oil and gas assets compared to regenerative alternatives over the next two decades?
My family history gave me a front-row seat to one of the greatest industrial achievements of the last century.
That history deserves respect, because hydrocarbons helped build the modern world.
However, every era creates new realities, and capital must evolve with them.
Today, the greatest investment risk is no longer simply market volatility, it is ecological instability.
Water scarcity, soil degradation, biodiversity loss and climate disruption are becoming material financial risks that affect every industry, including energy.
Investors who ignore these trends are overlooking the largest systemic risks of our generation.
Regenerative investments are not simply an ethical alternative; they are investments in the resilience of the systems upon which every economy depends.
Over the next 20 years, I believe capital that restores natural and social capital will increasingly outperform capital that extracts from it, because healthy ecosystems underpin healthy economies.
Industrial liabilities can become investments generating ecological, community value
Energy executives frequently criticise standard ESG criteria as compliance-heavy greenwashing; how does regenerative investing offer a distinct, auditable financial framework that guarantees tangible returns on investment for large-scale infrastructure?
I actually agree with much of the criticism surrounding ESG. Too often it has become a reporting exercise rather than a transformation strategy.
Regeneration begins with a different question: Instead of asking, “How do we minimise harm?” it asks, “How do we create measurable net positive value?”
That means measuring outcomes, such as increases in soil carbon, water retention, biodiversity, community resilience and long-term asset durability alongside financial performance.
These are increasingly quantifiable through advances in satellite monitoring, ecological accounting and natural capital valuation.
No responsible investor can guarantee returns; markets simply don’t work that way.
But regenerative investing seeks to reduce systemic risk while creating multiple forms of value that compound over time.
That is fundamentally different from compliance-driven ESG.
How do you square the idealistic goals of the ORIGIN launch in South Africa with the continent’s acute energy poverty and its immediate, non-negotiable reliance on fossil fuels for industrial baseload power?
Africa deserves the same opportunity for prosperity that industrialised nations have enjoyed.
Energy access is fundamental to health, education and economic development.
ORIGIN is not advocating that developing nations abandon reliable energy overnight; it is inviting a broader conversation about designing future prosperity differently from the past.
South Africa is uniquely positioned because it possesses extraordinary renewable resources, remarkable biodiversity, deep Indigenous wisdom and world-class innovation alongside existing industrial infrastructure.
Rather than framing this as fossil fuels versus regeneration, we can ask how today’s energy systems can finance and accelerate tomorrow’s regenerative economy.
The real opportunity is ensuring development restores landscapes and communities rather than degrading them.
Can regenerative finance provide a commercially viable mechanism for oil and gas majors to manage the multi-billion-dollar liabilities of decommissioning and asset remediation, or is it strictly limited to greenfield projects?
I believe this is one of the greatest opportunities available.
Around the world, trillions of dollars will be invested in remediation, restoration and infrastructure transition over coming decades.
Those expenditures should not simply be viewed as liabilities, they can become investments that generate ecological, economic and community value.
Imagine former industrial sites becoming renewable energy hubs, restored wetlands, regenerative agricultural landscapes or biodiversity corridors that strengthen regional economies.
Regenerative finance is not about abandoning existing assets; it is about transforming liabilities into productive, long-term value creation.
What specific financial structures are you deploying to convince deeply risk-averse, legacy energy wealth stewards to reallocate capital away from high-yielding fossil fuels into unproven regenerative markets?
The conversation is rarely about ideology, it is about risk management.
Institutional investors respond to diversified portfolios, blended finance, phased capital deployment, first-loss mechanisms, measurable milestones and strong governance.
Regenerative investments need to demonstrate the same financial discipline expected of any institutional asset class.
Equally important is demonstrating that natural capital is becoming economically material.
Water security, soil health, supply chain resilience and ecosystem services increasingly affect valuations across agriculture, insurance, infrastructure and real estate.
The question is no longer whether these risks exist; it is whether capital positions itself ahead of them or behind them.
With heavy industry demanding clear economic metrics, what is the average internal rate of return (IRR) for a regenerative project, and how does it realistically compete with traditional energy yields without relying on concessionary capital?
There isn’t a single regenerative IRR because regeneration spans agriculture, forestry, infrastructure, ecosystem restoration, manufacturing and technology.
Some projects generate modest but highly resilient returns; others perform competitively with conventional infrastructure investments.
What matters is understanding total value creation rather than focusing on one financial metric in isolation.
When regenerative investments improve water availability, reduce insurance exposure, strengthen supply chains and enhance long-term land productivity, they generate economic benefits that traditional accounting often fails to capture.
Financial markets are only beginning to price these advantages appropriately.
As international capital increasingly penalises carbon-intensive sectors, how can regenerative investment frameworks prevent the premature stranding of vital energy infrastructure in developing economies?
Transition must be practical, not punitive; developing economies should not bear disproportionate costs for a problem largely created through historical industrialisation elsewhere.
Regenerative finance should support gradual diversification, workforce transition, infrastructure adaptation and community resilience, not impose unrealistic timelines.
The goal is evolution rather than disruption.
Capital should help countries build future prosperity while maintaining energy reliability throughout the transition.
Beyond symbolic collaboration, how exactly does the ORIGIN platform intend to translate Indigenous ecological knowledge into quantifiable, scalable risk-mitigation data that institutional energy investors can actually underwrite?
One of the greatest mistakes modern society has made is separating Indigenous wisdom from scientific inquiry.
They are complementary ways of understanding complex living systems.
ORIGIN creates space for Indigenous leaders, scientists, investors and innovators to work together rather than in parallel.
Increasingly, ecological indicators informed by traditional land stewardship can be validated through remote sensing, biodiversity monitoring, hydrology, soil science and landscape performance metrics.
This allows ancient knowledge to inform modern investment decisions in ways that are both measurable and scalable.
The future belongs to integration, not hierarchy.
How do you respond to industry pragmatists who argue that shifting private capital entirely to regenerative models ahead of grid-scale technological readiness threatens global energy security and price stability?
I would say they raise an important point.
No serious transition should compromise energy security or economic stability.
Regeneration is not about replacing one form of dogma with another; the objective is to steadily increase investment in systems that build resilience while responsibly managing the infrastructure society currently depends upon.
We need an orderly transition that reduces long-term risk without creating unnecessary short-term instability. That is responsible stewardship.
What structural changes must traditional energy boards implement to transition from defensive environmental risk management to active, capital-backed ecosystem restoration?
Boards need to expand how they define value.
Environmental restoration should no longer sit solely within sustainability departments. It belongs within core capital allocation, enterprise risk management and long-term strategic planning.
That means incorporating expertise in systems thinking, natural capital, Indigenous knowledge, ecological science and regenerative economics into governance itself.
The companies that lead over the next generation will not simply produce energy. They will become stewards of the ecological and social systems that make all economic activity possible.
That is ultimately what ORIGIN represents. It is an invitation, not to reject our industrial past , but to build a future where finance, nature and humanity prosper together.