A Retirement System That Grows: Social Security Backed by Living Assets
Thinking outside the box to link long-term financial security to the health and productivity of thriving ecosystems.
Up front, this is one of the furthest “out there” ideas that I’ve shared on this Substack. It’s admittedly underbaked. And I used ChatGPT to turn it into something a bit more coherent.
But in a time when it feels like we are doing everything to simply not go backwards in our environmental and equity ambitions, I feel that now, perhaps more than ever, it’s important to dream. Spending at least some of our limited energies creating ideas that could some day become reality under different circumstances. Perhaps broadening the “Overton Window”.
I also want to emphasize that this is an idea that is of the “monetization” of nature variety. An attempt to internalize ecological value and long-termism into a capitalist system where value is represented by the dollar and short-term gain is a core design feature. I don’t begin to purport that this is the “right” way to go, but I do think solutions like this are worth considering given our current ecological, economic and sociocultural state.
What if part of your retirement income came from the value created by functioning ecosystems—forests that store carbon, wetlands that reduce flood risk, grasslands that improve water quality?
Social Security is one of the most important financial pillars in American life. But its long-term solvency is under pressure. Meanwhile, our ecosystems—on which so much of our actual economic resilience depends—are declining, largely unaccounted for in financial terms.
This post explores a model that connects those two problems. What if we built a natural capital trust that restores and manages ecosystems and distributes the returns from that value to the American people as a form of long-term income?
It’s not a silver bullet. But it’s a concrete way to link environmental protection and restoration to financial security. And it gives people a direct, material reason to support ecological investments, even when they come with short-term costs.
A Different Kind of Public Wealth
Under this model, every American would be granted one non-transferable share in a U.S. Natural Capital Trust—a public-benefit entity designed to acquire, restore, and protect natural capital: forests, wetlands, grasslands, coastal ecosystems, and other functioning landscapes. This trust owns and manages natural capital assets across the country.
These ecosystems would be selected not just for their conservation value, but for their ability to provide measurable, monetizable services. Think carbon sequestration from reforested lands. Improved water quality from restored wetlands. Reduced insurance risk from functioning floodplains. Biodiversity credits generated from protected habitat.
As those assets are restored, they begin to generate recurring revenue. That revenue flows back to the trust. And when people retire, they begin receiving a dividend.
It’s a relatively straightforward structure:
You restore and protect productive, regenerative ecological assets.
You monetize the services they provide.
You distribute the returns to the people who own a share.
What the Numbers Say
Let’s say we wanted this system to fully replace Social Security. The average benefit today is around $22,000 per year, and we expect roughly 70 million retirees in the coming decades. That’s $1.54 trillion annually.
If our natural capital trust could generate a 4% annual return on its assets—reasonable, given current projections from high-integrity ecosystem markets—we’d need a total asset base of $38.5 trillion to fund that level of payout sustainably.
That’s a very large number. But if we built that base gradually over 30 years, it would require about $1.28 trillion per year in capital flows. This is not a small public investment—but it’s in the same ballpark as what we already spend annually on fossil fuel subsidies, excess health care costs from pollution, and climate-related disaster response.
The point isn’t that we could flip a switch tomorrow. The point is that if we started directing existing flows toward regenerating ecological value—with clear rules, transparency, and long-term planning—we could build a natural capital base large enough to provide financial returns at scale.
But, let’s be real, $38.5T is a shit-ton of money.
Rather than aiming to fully replace Social Security (~$1.54T/year), what if we started with a more realistic near-term goal:
Use nature-backed revenues to supplement retirement, especially for rural, Indigenous, and underserved communities.
Target $100–200 billion/year in dividends within 20–30 years—a 5–10% supplement.
Provide stabilizing, inflation-resistant public wealth in the form of a growing natural capital base.
Over time, if natural asset accounting becomes widespread (e.g., via TNFD), and ecosystem service payments become routine, this could become a serious macroeconomic asset class. But only if individuals have a vested interest in nature such that they will support regulation that requires private and public entities to pay for it’s services.
What Makes It Work
For this kind of system to function, five conditions need to be in place:
Standardized Valuation: We need agreed-upon methods for quantifying the economic value of ecosystem services—whether it’s carbon storage, avoided flood costs, or pollination benefits. Many of these frameworks already exist. They just need consistency and adoption.
Legal Infrastructure: Natural systems must be recognized as investable assets, with defined rights, custodianship rules, and ability to generate revenue. This could take the form of environmental service royalties, long-term leases, or ecosystem credit markets.
Revenue Mechanisms: Monetization is key. That includes carbon markets, biodiversity credit systems, water trading, insurance cost sharing, public procurement contracts, and more. The more reliable and liquid these markets become, the more investable natural capital gets.
Restoration Capacity: The system only works if ecosystems are actually restored and managed. That means jobs, project pipelines, science-backed methodologies, and long-term stewardship commitments.
Governance and Trust: The Natural Capital Trust must be independently governed with clear fiduciary duties—not to politicians or investors, but to the long-term health of both ecosystems and people.
Why People Would Support It—Even If It Costs More
Here’s the important political logic: people are far more likely to support new environmental legislation—carbon pricing, biodiversity offset requirements, water extraction fees—if they know they’ll directly benefit from the revenues those policies generate.
Today, most people see these policies as extra costs: more expensive fuel, higher utility bills, pricier goods. But under a nature-backed social security model, those same revenues are understood differently: they’re investments in a shared public asset that grows over time and pays out later.
It’s similar to a carbon tax + dividend, but extended across multiple ecosystem services.
The logic is straightforward:
When polluting industries are required to pay, that revenue funds restoration.
Restoration generates ecosystem services.
Those services have economic value.
That value is returned to citizens later in life.
This kind of structure creates long-term alignment. People are more likely to support environmental regulation—even at some personal cost—if they know the system is designed to give back to them directly, both in the form of a healthier environment and future income.
I would love to see an economic analysis that looks at the relative increase in cost of goods relative to the long-term retirement payouts. And then how that looks when you add broader ecological co-benefits: cleaner air, reduced disaster risk, more stable food systems, and improved public health.
Aligning Incentives
This isn’t about ideology. It’s about incentives, stability, and making public finance more resilient.
A nature-backed trust can serve as a buffer against market volatility. It provides a non-correlated income stream. It turns nature conservation and restoration from a cost center into a productive asset base. And it re-establishes the idea that shared public resources—like healthy ecosystems—can and should provide long-term returns to everyone.
We already do this with infrastructure: toll roads, ports, even the Alaska Permanent Fund. Nature should be next.
Worth Exploring?
This isn’t a plan to replace Social Security overnight. It’s a proposal to start building a complementary system—one that grows over time, is grounded in measurable returns, and helps close both our ecological and financial gaps.
We have the science to value ecosystems. We have the tools to restore them. And we increasingly have mechanisms to begin to capture the value of nature in monetary terms.
What we don’t yet have is a structure that connects long-term nature outcomes to individuals long-term financial well-being.
That’s what this trust maybe, just maybe, could do. It’s not utopian. But maybe it’s a practical way to build wealth that lasts—and ecosystems that do, too.
— Eric
Love this idea and would definitely encourage further noodling on it! As far as I can tell, the concept of the Natural Capital Trust would adapt well to the UK pension system. The UK faces a convergence of tough challenges that this approach could address, from biodiversity loss and climate crisis, through widening rural-urban inequalities, to pressures on DB schemes, lack of faith in DC scheme alternatives and the need for long-term inflation-resilient retirement income streams. Bravo!
Cool idea!