Rebeca Mora

Rebeca Mora is a Ph.D. holder in Science with expertise in Bio physics and Bio design. She has served as a Principal Investigator and researcher at the Cellular and Molecular Biology Research Center and Materials Science and Engineering Research Center, both affiliated with the University of Costa Rica. Rebeca is a Biomimicry Specialist and a TED speaker who emphasizes the value of her cross disciplinary work history. She is passionate about research on how nature creates colors and nanostructural arrays in diverse forms of life and envisions Costa Rica as a pioneer in conscientious design and “more than human” ways living.

What we learnt

Rebeca Mora offers a thought-provoking perspective on nature, impact investment, and the ideal vision of a regenerative economy. She goes beyond the oversimplified understanding of biodiversity, emphasizing the interconnectedness, and complexity of nature. To illustrate this, she presents a piece of bread with mold, symbolizing that nature is in all the everyday, non-spectacular species and ecosystems which are usually neglected even though they keep us alive, she emphasizes that nature encompasses more than what our species is able to detect, value and understand.

Rebeca challenges the concept of sustainability, arguing that it fails to prioritize upon attuned relationships between humans and nature and the understanding of initial processesand triggers of current environmental problems. Instead, she advocates for new ways of thinking and doing nurtured by biological concepts which embrace complexity. She stresses the importance of comprehending how nature functions and constructing systems that align with its complexity.

When discussing the integration of nature into financial decision-making, Rebeca underscores the significance of coexistence. Drawing inspiration from ecological interactions in nature, she highlights the contextual and scale-dependent nature of these relationships. Coexistence, she explains, does not entail the absence of conflict but rather finding tolerable limits and adapting to the natural context. Rebeca emphasizes the need for humans to revisit  our history and interactions with nature,  to go beyond human perspective, and begin to propose and understand our impact from the bottom up, developing locally situated and responsive thoughts and actions and not globalized decisions disconnectedfrom the biological context.

Regarding her vision of a regenerative economy and finance in 20 years, Rebeca proposes three key aspects. Firstly, she emphasizes the necessity of a planetary responsive approach that acknowledges and manages ecological limits. Secondly, she advocates for an ecologically informed model that embraces complexity and encourages crossdisciplinary collaboration (meaning diverse disciplines plus diverse participants with different perceptions of the world beyond academia). Lastly, she promotes a more-than-human perspective, where diverse stakeholders, including different species, engage in global governance discussions to effectively serve a fair mission.

Rebeca’s insights call for a profound understanding of our relationship with nature and underscore the importance of integrating nature's principles into our economic and financial systems. Her perspective challenges conventional notions of sustainability and presents a more comprehensive and biologically informed approach to forging a regenerative future.