When I was about 20, I learned to darn socks. I’d read about it, and I’d seen my mother do it a few times. The craft of it appealed to me: you weave new cloth where the old has given out. (The thrift, too, although even my student budget allowed for new socks.) But mostly, I was just curious about this basic old art.

Then I graduated and got a job. I had more money and less time. Socks with holes were a problem: too good to throw away, but a nuisance to repair when it was so easy and cheap to buy new ones.

In fact, we’ve seen all manner of repair fall out of vogue. It’s easier to buy a new toaster than fix one; so much more rewarding to get a shiny new thing than to get that old one working again. And it usually costs less to buy new than to repair. No wonder we have a serious addiction to landfills!

Thankfully, savvy investors are now rethinking this buy-and-dump mentality. If something was good before, why fix it? If it held quality, offered service, and rendered value, surely it can again. (This would be painfully obvious to our grandparents. But in our era of cheap energy and global goodies, we’re in remedial mode here.)

A speaker at Vancouver’s recent 30 Days of Sustainability took my darned socks to a whole new level. Storm Cunningham is the author of two books about the “renewal economy”—where economic growth is based on renewing natural, built, and social environments. In this economy, smart investment dollars rejuvenate existing assets instead of building new, from historic buildings to lost rivers, and from dysfunctional ecosystems to entire neighbourhoods forsaken by mainstream investors, yet rich in renewal potential.

One example is the Noisette Project, a sustainable redevelopment in South Carolina. When a navy base closed, the City of North Charleston had the opportunity to allow public access to its waterfront for the first time in 100 years. Environmental restoration improved quality of life, which attracted developers, who in turn pulled neighbourhoods out of their post-industrial slump. As inherent environmental and heritage values have been resurrected, social value has been restored. A new landscape and lifestyle is coming to life by making use of what was already in place.

Cunningham’s stories offer ideas to the socially responsible investor in all of us. He said true sustainability must be built at the middle and end of the life cycle of goods. It’s not about developing new “green” products; it’s about doing more with what we already have. (Can’t you hear your grandma talking? Time to tackle that drawer of holey socks!)

Maintenance, conservation, and reinvestment are where Cunningham sees the engines of future growth, especially as our world becomes more resource-constrained. And if you are investing in things that are new, make sure they’re built to last. We’ve seen a generation of products—especially in our built environment—made of flimsy materials with little craftsmanship, which will not be worthy of reinvestment by our kids. It’s time to stop going for quick, cheap, disposable. Put your dollars into solid, durable, and well-made instead.

“You are what you save,” says an ING Direct billboard I’ve seen around town. Sure, the slogan is about cash in your account. But it made me think about healthy rivers, historic buildings, neighbourhoods rich with stories, family heirlooms. New is nice, and sometimes it’s a good investment. But learning to save—to reinvest, restore, revitalize, remember—is most certainly one path to true wealth.

Nina Winham is principal of New Climate Strategies (newclimate.ca [1]), helping clients message and manage change, and build value through sustainability practices. She reduces her use of landfill by making sock puppets.