---
type: summary
title: Bioregional Financing Facilities (book, 2024)
description: A 2024 book proposing Bioregional Financing Facilities, place-governed institutions that route integrated capital to portfolios of regenerative projects in every bioregion.
status: draft
confidence: medium
validation: machine
timestamp: 2026-10-09
licence: CC BY-SA 4.0
tags: [bioregional-financing-facilities, bioregional-finance, systemic-investing, integrated-capital, governance, regenerative-economy, dark-matter-labs]
sources: []
---

# Bioregional Financing Facilities (book, 2024)

*A 168-page book by Samantha Power (The BioFi Project and Finance for Gaia) and Leon Seefeld (Dark Matter Labs and Dark Matter Capital Systems). The BioFi Project, Dark Matter Labs and the Buckminster Fuller Institute published it in June 2024 (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 2). Read for this page: the contents (pp. 4 to 6), the foreword and key messages (pp. 8 to 12), sections 1.3 and 1.4 (pp. 33 to 37), chapter 2 (pp. 39 to 40 and 43 to 48), chapter 4 up to the phase 1 templates (pp. 66 to 79), sections 4.3 to 4.5 (pp. 94 to 105), chapter 5 (pp. 107 to 112), chapter 8 (pp. 141 to 145) and the conclusion (p. 147). Not read: the executive summary, chapter 3, chapters 6 and 7, most case studies and the glossary.*

## What it argues

The book proposes the Bioregional Financing Facility (BFF) as "a new layer in the global financial architecture" (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 44). Every bioregion on Earth could create one. A BFF raises integrated capital from many sources and sends it to aggregated portfolios of coordinated regenerative projects. "In return, regeneration benefits can flow back to investors in a community-determined, non-extractive way." (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 44) The authors call this missing link between capital holders and regenerators "connective tissue" (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 44). A BFF works beside a Bioregional Organizing Team and one or more Bioregional Hubs. The book calls these the three legs of bioregional regeneration (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 68).

The case starts from a risk. A wave of capital is now committed to "investing in nature". If it flows through the existing financial architecture, the authors expect more commodification, privatization and centralization of natural assets (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, pp. 35 to 36). So the size of the "nature finance gap" is only half the problem. The book says "where and how those resources are spent and who gets to make those decisions is as important as the amount." (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 36)

The book is open about what it leaves unsettled. It says "a full exploration of governance is not within the scope of this book." (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 107) On links between BFFs at different scales, "there is no theoretically ideal prescription that can be offered today" (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 112). It calls the rationale for investing in bioregional regeneration emergent, to be developed through prototypes (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 94). Many bioregions cannot raise enough capital from within, especially colonized ones (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 101). In places that grew wealthy from extraction, localizing capital without reparation may deepen inequality (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 68). The critique of money itself is out of scope (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 36).

## Key points

- **Three objectives.** A BFF aims to decentralize financial resource governance, organize synergistic portfolios of projects, and catalyze the transition to a regenerative economy (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 45).
- **Twelve attributes.** Each facility should work towards twelve attributes, adapted to its place (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, pp. 46 to 47). They include participatory governance that represents the bioregion, an integrated capital structure, aggregation and matchmaking, shared sensing and MRV, and storytelling (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, pp. 70 to 77).
- **Four types, set up in phases.** The templates are a Bioregional Trust, a Bioregional Venture Studio, a Bioregional Investment Company and a Bioregional Bank (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 47). The book recommends a grant-funded Trust first, then a Venture Studio (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 77). The Investment Company follows once projects can take investment, and the Bank comes in phase 2 or 3 (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 78).
- **Modular by design.** A bioregion may combine several functions in one facility. Existing vehicles such as CDFIs, land trusts and perpetual purpose trusts could become BFFs (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 78). A Bioregional Insurance Company is named as needed but left out of scope (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 78).
- **Many kinds of capital.** A table maps sources from development aid, grants and donor-advised funds to market-rate capital, insurers, central banks, supply chain finance and eco-credits (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, pp. 95 to 100). One near-term route is the $20 billion in aid pledged by 2025 under Target 19 of the Global Biodiversity Framework (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 94).
- **Systemic portfolios.** BFFs build on systemic investing, whose aim the book gives as "Transform a system" (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 102). A portfolio can fund low-profit work such as policy, convening and conflict mediation, because it helps other projects succeed (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 103).
- **Returns serve the strategy.** The book says "financial returns cannot be the purpose of an investment." (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 73) It measures returns with the 4 Returns Framework: financial, social, ecological and inspiration (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 12).
- **Governance that represents the place.** Boards should be ethnically and culturally representative, include Indigenous groups, hear youth and elders, rotate, and seat proxies for more-than-human life (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 108). The book suggests separating operating governance from governance of profit distribution (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 111).

## Where it sits in this wiki

- [[BFF Discovery Arc 1: Allocation Decision Governance]] takes up allocation governance, which this book leaves open in chapter 5 (synthesis).
- [[BFF Discovery Arc 2: Blended Finance and Catalytic Capital]] works on the integrated capital structure that this book sketches in section 4.3 (synthesis).
- [[SI-SF: System Investing and System Finance (Codex 25)]] sets out the systemic investing that this book's portfolios build on (synthesis).
- [[BioFi Deep Dive: bioregional financing facilities in Europe]] surveys BFF work in Europe, where this book's template meets practice (synthesis).
- [[Bioregioning Tayside: the BFF page and interviews]] covers BFF work in Tayside, a bioregion this book lists among its examples (raw/Bioregional Financing Facilities – Reimagining Finance to Regenerate Our Planet_compressed.pdf, p. 39).