29 Nov 2025
Laila Martins
German
Interview with Laila Martins Founder and CEO of RegenBeings, an organization that focuses on designing events, learning programs, and workflows for regenerative and preferable futures.
Laila Martins is based in Bonn, Germany (headquarters of the UNFCCC), and has a background in International Relations and Sustainable Development. Her career has spanned corporate sustainability roles, including leading a global carbon accounting program at DHL, and supporting various projects across NGOs and social enterprise such as the Entertainment + Culture Pavillion, the Inner Development Goals, Resolve and Unity Effect and collaborating with UN projects such as the UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub.
Her work emphasizes moving from "sustainability" (doing less harm) to "regeneration" (creating positive, long-term value for planet and people). She is a strong proponent of the need for inner work for outer action, which focuses on developing inner capacities (such as long-term orientation, mobilization skills, resilience and complexity awareness) as a crucial step for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She believes that culture is the missing link in our approach to climate action, and that pairing it with data-driven evidence and technology as an enabler, can unlock meaningful environmental and social progress.
1. Tell us about your educational and professional background that led you to becoming the Founder and CEO of RegenBeings.
After graduating in Brazil, I had the opportunity to move to Germany, and to join DHL under managers who nurtured my curiosity and growth. Their support enabled me to explore a variety of roles: from becoming a data expert to handling global HR-compliance matters such as human-rights topics. I then stepped into what I considered my dream intersection: combining data expertise with sustainability. In my final role at DHL, I led the design and deployment of a global data architecture capable of capturing standardized operational data from multiple countries. This gave us robust, high-quality indicators to guide strategic decision-making towards reducing carbon emissions across the organization.
Following this work, I began several parallel initiatives: building networks of sustainability professionals, introducing inner-development practices within corporate spaces, and exploring regenerative innovation. It became clear that what I deeply cared about was helping organizations and networks to shift toward more collaborative, efficient and regenerative ways of working that actively shape and cultivate preferable futures.
That insight gave rise to RegenBeings. The name reflects a belief I hold deeply: that we are nature, one species among countless beings on the only known planet that sustains life, and that our responsibility to all who live here begins with transforming our culture, our way of being. My work with RegenBeings has also evolved from recognizing the potential of new business models. As a migrant founder in Germany, I’m proud to champion entrepreneurship as a catalyst for the new stories and systems we urgently need.
2. Tell us about how your work emphasizes moving from "sustainability" (doing less harm) to "regeneration" (creating positive, long-term value for the planet and people).
My work focuses on guiding organizations beyond traditional sustainability, which often centers on reducing harm, toward regeneration, where long-term positive value for people and the planet is created. Regeneration invites us to see ourselves as nature, not as an external force acting upon it, and to recognize that our decisions ripple through the wider living systems we are part of.
In practice, regeneration calls for reimagining entire systems, not just improving existing ones. Organizations might co-create supply networks that restore land rights while regenerating ecosystems. Companies can transition from extractive business models to investing in nature-positive technologies, bioregional planning, or community wealth-building initiatives that redistribute value locally. Teams may experiment with governance models rooted in shared stewardship, enabling collective intelligence to guide decisions. These approaches demonstrate how regeneration can reshape economies, cultures, and ecosystems so that all forms of life can flourish together.
Here’s my dream project as an example of what regeneration means to me: Picture a tobacco company confronting the harm of its past and transforming its agricultural, logistical, and scientific expertise into a regenerative, health-centered enterprise, growing nutrient-dense crops, restoring ecosystems, and strengthening community well-being. Now imagine the systemic shift if other extractive, life-diminishing sector dared to transform in this way. We’re already seeing glimpses of this potential in organizations helping to turn animal factory-farming operations into hubs that produce plant-based resources such as mushrooms, seaweed, and hemp that can be used not only as food alternatives but also as replacements for petrochemical products.
3. Tell us about your RegenBeings vision and mission at COP30.
Because of the diverse ecosystem of collaborations that RegenBeings is part of, I arrived at COP30 wearing several complementary hats across key thematic areas of climate transformation.
1. Culture-based climate action: Through our collaboration with Climate Live Entertainment + the Culture Pavilion, I supported more than 80 events and contributed as a producer, moderator, and translator for several of them. This work highlighted how art, storytelling, and cultural expression, especially from those at the frontlines of climate impact, including Indigenous peoples, Black communities, women, and urban peripheries, embody living cultures of adaptation. What we call culture-based climate action has the power to shift mindsets and mobilize collective action in ways that traditional policy mechanisms alone cannot.
2. Network Intelligence: I worked to showcase Resolve’s network research and technology, helping illustrate how evidence-backed decision-making, ecosystem mapping, and systems thinking can reveal where collaboration is emerging, where it’s missing, and where catalytic interventions could unlock entirely new pathways for climate impact. We see enormous synergy potential among organizations working in this space, and network intelligence helps us channel it.
3. Inner development for climate leadership: A third strand of my work focused on bringing inner work into global climate spaces, something RegenBeings has been championing in collaboration with the Inner Development Goals and the UNFCCC Global Innovation Hub. Speaking alongside scientists and spiritual leaders, I shared why inner capacities are essential foundations for regenerative leadership and effective negotiations.
4. Latin America–Europe bridge-building: I also leaned deeply into my role as a bridge-builder between Latin America and Europe, working to identify partnerships, organizations, and collaborative opportunities that can thrive across continents, especially those capable of generating new regenerative business models. Strengthening these cross-regional connections is essential for scalable, culturally rooted climate solutions.
5. Strengthening the SBs in Bonn: Finally, one of my core missions as someone living in Bonn is to bring far more attention upstream to the SBs held here every June. While COPs attract enormous global visibility, it is during the SBs that many of the foundational negotiations, frameworks, and decisions are shaped long before they reach the stage in November. If more creativity, collaboration, and cultural energy flowed into the SBs, they could become powerful guides for stronger, more informed, and more regenerative decision-making at COP.
Together, these roles embody what RegenBeings stands for: weaving culture, intelligence, inner development, cross-regional collaboration, and upstream diplomacy into climate action, so that a more regenerative and preferable future becomes not only possible, but inevitable.
4. COP30, held in Belém, Brazil, made significant progress in integrating cultural heritage and Indigenous knowledge into the global climate agenda, highlighting their importance for effective adaptation strategies. Tell us about your contributions to this agenda while you work to connect global and local leaders to advance "upstream" climate action ahead of the COP meetings.
I had the privilege to produce and moderate key sessions from the Climate Live and Entertainment and Culture Pavillion, that enabled spaces where culture, lived experience, and traditional knowledge could influence global climate conversations as core drivers of meaningful action. Below you'll find a short overview of these sessions:
“Decolonising Climate Policy and Advancing Climate Justice” with IFA (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), a session that brought forward urgent conversations on international cooperation with indigenous and local communities, justice, and equity. In “Artivism for Climate Justice” with Parede Viva, they elevated frontline creators who use artistic and cultural expression as tools for resistance, healing, and transformation. With “Cosmoperceptions of the Forest,” a partnership between the Goethe-Institut and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, they wove together forest knowledge systems, community stories, and ancestral wisdom to show how cultural and ecological intelligence must inform adaptation strategies.
In the session “Arts Innovation: From the South to the Global South”, featuring Infinity Village, Kayeb, Brain Farmacy, and Quilombo da Atacal, an inspiring showcase of oral storytelling, cultural innovation, and creative social technology emerging from across the multiple “Souths”. And with Mídia Ninja and Peoples of the Forest, they spotlighted the extraordinary flotilla that crossed the ocean to reach COP30, sharing its story of courage and artistic expression. They also highlighted a gathering that brought together artists, creatives, and traditional knowledge keepers to coordinate collective action ahead of COP.
It was such an honor to be a part of bringing this work to life.
5. Tell us about the events you planned for the first ever Culture Day at COP 30 and also Culture and Heritage & Art Thematic Day.
Through the Climate Live Entertainment + Culture Pavilion, I had the opportunity to support a wide range of events during the first-ever Culture Day at COP30. The pavilion served as a living demonstration of how culture, creativity, and community leadership drive climate action. Below are some of the inspiring sessions that took place:
On the Culture & Heritage + Art Thematic Day, I had a great time moderating a session developed in collaboration with the PCCB (Paris Committee on Capacity-building): “Designing Capacity for Culture-Based Climate Action.” Bringing together leaders from the Climate Heritage Network (Co-chair for Africa), UNFCCC Entertainment and Culture for Climate Action Alliance, We Make Tomorrow and People’s Palace Project, this session explored how cultural institutions, practitioners, and communities can build long-term capacity for transformative, culture-led climate action.
7. Here is an article about the science and art initiatives at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University the https://www.tiredearth.com/articles/lamont-doherty-earth-observatory-joins-cop30-with-science--art what are your thoughts?
LDEO’s work is a powerful example of how deep scientific research and artistic expression can come together to illuminate the interconnectedness of forests, rivers, and oceans, exactly the theme of COP30. I appreciate how the exhibitions translate complex science into accessible cultural experiences, especially through Indigenous knowledge, biodiversity, and the Amazon’s “forests to sea” systems. This kind of science–art collaboration is essential for engaging broader publics and strengthening climate action rooted in understanding, beauty, and responsibility.
This is exactly why I chose to work with the Climate Live Entertainment + Culture Pavilion. I deeply believe in the power of culture and art, especially when paired with rigorous scientific evidence, to make climate realities understandable, relatable, and emotionally resonant.
9. How can people reach you?
Website: RegenBeings.com
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laila-martins/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/regenlaila/
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