EUVC E618 | EUVC Live powered by Woven Capital at The Drop | Jamie Rowles, Regeneration VC: Europe’s Conscious Consumer Lab
Welcome back to EUVC Live in Malmö, where we bring you unfiltered conversations with the voices shaping Europe’s venture ecosystem.
In this session, Jamie Rowles, Partner at Regeneration VC, takes the stage to explore Europe’s role in the global climate transition — and why consumer climate tech might just be the continent’s hidden superpower.
Regeneration VC is a transatlantic early-stage fund investing in what they call consumer climate tech — the intersection of sustainability, circular systems, and the products we touch every day. From fashion and food to electronics and personal care, these industries account for over half of Europe’s GDP and are ripe for climate-driven reinvention.
Jamie makes the case that Europe is the world’s “conscious consumer lab” — home to 450 million affluent consumers, global brands with long-term outlooks, and cultural leadership in taste and sustainability. In a world divided by politics and partisanship, Europe’s climate leadership might emerge not from regulation or tech — but from what people choose to buy.
🎧 Here’s what’s covered:
00:30 From California to Europe — why Regeneration VC shifted its center of gravity across the Atlantic.
01:00 Climate Tech 2.0 — five years in, why the sector still battles skepticism and political headwinds in the US.
02:00 What China has won — manufacturing scale in renewables and batteries — and where Europe still has an edge: brands, culture, and consumers.
02:40 Europe’s $17T consumer market — 450 million developed consumers representing half of Europe’s GDP across food, fashion, electronics, and home care.
03:30 The overlooked industries — fashion’s carbon footprint beats shipping and aviation combined, yet remains underfunded in climate solutions.
04:10 The Regeneration thesis — investing across the value chain “from the molecule to the product and back,” with circularity and regeneration at the core.
04:30 The “movie” metaphor — brands as directors, climate technologies as actors, and consumers as the audience. Changing the script from extractive to regenerative.
05:30 Europe’s unique role — home to the world’s most influential consumer brands, from IKEA to Adidas, that define global taste and culture.
06:00 Taste as system change — when European design and lifestyle drive demand for better, circular products, the world follows.
06:30 Partnerships that matter — why the next decade of climate progress will be built on collaboration between startups and corporates.
07:00 Next-gen materials — microbes dyeing clothes, enzymes digesting plastics, and circular chemistry reshaping trillion-dollar industries.
07:30 The European consumer advantage — more conscious, regulation-aware, and quality-driven than anywhere else in the world.
08:00 Human health = planetary health — how awareness of PFAS and microplastics is shifting mainstream behavior and regulation.
08:30 Regulation as tailwind — why Europe’s high standards and strict product rules accelerate innovation, not stifle it.
09:00 The takeaway — Europe as a living experiment in regenerative consumer capitalism, where culture, capital, and conscience align.