Climate Capital: Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future

by Tom Chi

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Framework to design a real, sustainable, and non-harmful approach to our global economy 

Seeing economics for the design discipline it truly is, Climate Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future, leverages the decades of experience of Tom Chi as a physicist and designer to offer a realistic, grounded perspective on the fact that our current economic systems simply don’t work with our world’s physical reality in the long-term. The comprehensive, holistic approach in this book cuts through the noise of so many conversations happening at the intersection of climate change, economics, sustainability, and our global future, providing insights  

Possibilities for our collective future using science and hard evidence, avoiding the extremes of unbridled optimism or complete doom and gloom  The 4Cs―Critical Thinking, Creativity, Compassion, and Community―as a framework to design a sustainable, non-harmful approach to our global economy  Using nature, the best-designed system out there, instead of economic pseudoscience, as a guide to move beyond fear for our future to a place of empowerment for individuals and communities alike  Part toolkit, part history, and part demonstration, Climate Investing in the Tools for a Regenerative Future provides tangible strategies for venture capitalists, sophisticated individual investors, pragmatic policy wonks, and ardent environmental activists to create a sustainable economic future that no longer destroys the planet. 

320 pages, Hardcover

Published February 17, 2026

Reviews

[Max Astle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I went into this book expected all of it to be at the level of granularity that part 3 was. It is mostly high level (we need to be creative and compassionate if we are going to solve for climate change). I liked what was discussed the high level, but I was hoping to get more into the weeds. Overall: iss aiight

[Mert Topcu · Rating 5 out of 5]

What Tom Chi does better than almost anyone is expose how the fundamental assumptions in our existing economic frames are incomplete, how they systematically exclude the value of human connection, biodiversity, and natural systems not as an oversight but as a structural feature.

Some chapters left me wanting to go deeper but that's the nature of a book that's trying to break the frame and build a new one across the entire landscape.

Don't let the title narrow your expectations: this book reaches well beyond climate tech and speaks to anyone questioning whether the frames we use to measure value and seemingly create value are measuring or building the right things.

[Jonathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

4Cs framework = critical thinking, creativity, compassion, and community

Part 3 is where it comes together. Instead of throwing out economics and capitalism (like in calls for "degrowth"), this book proposes adjusting capitalism to account for environmental equity (e.g. healthy watershed resources) which can still be pro-growth. That is probably the biggest contribution from the book in my opinion.

There are some other positive reframing ideas, for example that labels for "capitalism" and "socialism" are really about efficiency vs. availability; both can be important to prioritize and are not actually mutually exclusive. Similarly, "conservatism" and "liberalism" in politics is like maintaining or preserving a garden vs. expanding the garden, which are both needed again rather than contradictory.

However, the examples are not fully convincing:
- Traditional Hawaiian land management is a nice and interesting example but very limited. How extensible is that really? Probably not very. The fact is that native populations were overrun in the course of history which is how we ended up where society is today, and going back to more sustainable methods like that might require vastly lower carrying capacities which means population collapse. We can possibly use technology development to augment this but we should be honest that this remains unproven. Things like some mangrove planting drones is frankly not enough to prove it.
- The author likes to mention his work on Google Glass which many would call a failed product, although perhaps it was just too early. (Also, the author knows that most people will not have access to Google X level of financial resources. If Google can only get so far, what does that imply for others? Scale back projections accordingly.)
- Another example is from 2013 when politicians in Singapore began studying policies to retrain taxi drivers into other jobs once self-driving cars automates their employment, but in the years since then, ride-sharing networks have greatly increased the numbers of human drivers while autonomous vehicles are still only in the earliest phases of rollout; so you might call them farsighted, but you could also say they were actually wrong, at the very least in timing.
- Another proposal is transparency on political donations, which is good, but we already have this; except for anonymous PACs, you could already look up what people have donated, although the vast majority of people likely do not bother.
- Other proposals are for shorter term lengths and "fast cycle prototyping" which is an obvious idea when your background is R&D engineering, but is likely not really that appropriate for politics. It depends on the required time period for a given body of work, if the minimum required timeframe to do a project is 1 year then holding daily elections for the supervisory position is not going to help. There are valid cases where term lengths should arguably be longer, not shorter; for example in quarterly corporate earning reports for public companies.

So interesting, worth reading, but not as convincing or strong as the author would probably like.

[Juan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good book and great topics, but we must address the elephant in the room.

Reading a book written with AI left me feeling completely disconnected as a reader; and I was really trying to vibe with it.

There were moments that drew me in, that I can feel the author took time to reflect on more thoroughly. As a result, where he didn’t, and AI stepped in, the words felt empty.

The book has a great message and valuable frameworks and tools, but if the point is to connect with people, this book failed that test, with me.

I’d love to hear back from others. What’s your take on my take?

Tom Chi— keep doing the good work.

[Daniel Gajardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up the book hoping to find ideas on financial innovation, and boy was I wrong. This book is about behavior, with Tom Chi resurfacing basic human skills that go unspoken in the world of ClimateTech, but are needed in anyone trying to build. Compassion, Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Community.

It does keep discussion at a high level, not allowing to fully expose the nuance of the topics Tom Chi opens up.