“The sustainability bridge is not the destination. Sustainability is only promising survival and neutrality. It’s not acknowledging the historical debt we have to nature and society. ”
— Laura Ortiz Montemayor
In this episode of SRI360, I’m joined by Laura Ortiz Montemayor to explore the limits of conventional sustainability frameworks and why regenerative finance is emerging as a more realistic way to understand long-term investment risk.
Laura’s perspective is shaped by experience on both sides of finance. She began her career in traditional banking, succeeded by every external measure, and still found herself confronting a deeper ethical tension about what capital ultimately supports. Walking away from that path forced her to question not just where money flows, but what kind of systems it quietly reinforces. That reckoning became the foundation for her work in impact investing and, eventually, regenerative finance.
Our conversation begins with a simple but uncomfortable question: why do sustainability strategies often fail to change outcomes, even when intentions are good? Laura argues that much of sustainable investing focuses on mitigation and neutrality, reducing harm without addressing the historical and systemic damage already embedded in economic systems. Regeneration, by contrast, starts with repair: restoring biodiversity, rebuilding ecosystems, and strengthening social and economic resilience at the same time.
We spend time unpacking why biodiversity loss represents a material and often mispriced financial risk. Laura explains how extractive agricultural and economic models can persist under “impact” labels when investors focus only on outputs rather than structures. Changing what we invest in, she argues, is not enough if the how of capital deployment remains unchanged.
The conversation also explores why emerging markets, particularly across Latin America, make these dynamics impossible to ignore. In regions where ecological fragility, rural livelihoods, and capital access are tightly linked, the consequences of poorly structured investment show up faster and more visibly. Laura shares lessons from her work building regenerative investment ecosystems and the origins of Regenera Ventures, a fund focused on financing rural regeneration in Mexico.
Throughout the episode, Laura returns to a central theme: capital is never neutral. It doesn’t just follow systems, it perpetuates them. The real question for investors is whether finance remains focused on short-term optimization, or whether it can be redesigned to support long-term resilience for people, ecosystems, and portfolios alike.
This episode is for investors seeking a deeper understanding of how climate risk, biodiversity, and regeneration intersect in practice, and why moving beyond sustainability toward regenerative finance may be essential for managing long-term risk and value creation.
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Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Overcast, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Castbox, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. You can watch the interview on YouTube here.
What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
SHOW NOTES:
[00:00] Introduction
[02:10] Growing up between Mexico and the U.S. & formative influences
[10:55] Studying finance and entering global banking
[14:55] Inside banking during the 2008 financial crisis
[21:30] Burnout, panic attack, and leaving traditional finance
[25:10] Discovering impact investing and questioning the system
[28:55] Founding SBX Mexico and building an impact ecosystem
[42:50] Why regeneration goes beyond sustainability
[50:45] The Holistic Impact Investment Spectrum explained
[55:55] Why ESG and sustainability fall short of true impact
[01:11:55] Launching Regenerative Ventures and fund strategy
[01:57:45] Rapid fire questions
Additional Resources:
- Laura Ortiz Montemayor LinkedIn
- Laura Ortiz Montemayor Holistic Spectrum, regenerative essays
- SVX México website / resources
- Regenera Ventures Fund website
MORE QUOTES FROM THE INTERVIEWS:
“Capital doesn’t just follow systems, it perpetuates them. The question is whether finance is at the service of life or controlling the dynamic. ”
— Laura Ortiz Montemayor
“There is an extractive way of doing agriculture, a destructive way, and an unethical way, and calling it ‘impact’ without looking at the how is a very low standard. ”
— Laura Ortiz Montemayor
