Going beyond sustainability
Regenerative farming is on the rise.
Impact Consultant Claire Wild takes a look at a game-changing concept that’s helping our clients take their positive impact to the next level.
Sustainability is so 2021. There’s a new kid on the block and they’re called regeneration. Regeneration takes sustainability a step further - if sustainability is about taking less, then regeneration is about giving back more than we take, leaving the places we do business better for future generations. Organisations that adopt a regenerative mindset can find new ways to create more positive impact for their stakeholders, including our planet.
Here’s a description of regeneration by Naarm Melbourne-based education provider and strategic consultancy Regeneration Projects:
“Regenerative business and development is about creating the most positive impacts we can for our local community, ecology, culture and economy.”
A note on sustainability
“Sustainability means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”
This is a commonly accepted definition of sustainability, created by the United Nations Brundtland Commission in 1987.
Over the past few decades, this definition of sustainability has given us the language to explain our responsibility to protect our planet for future generations. This has enabled us to have important conversations about the relationship between the health of our people and the health of our environment.
A notable milestone in the global sustainability conversation has been the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (the SDGs). These 17 goals set the agenda for global development by 2030, and were adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015.
The SDGs have given people, organisations and governments tangible sustainability targets to work towards, and timeframes to achieve them. This has helped society to take action to make our world a better place.
Reporting against the SDGs helps organisations to demonstrate that they are contributing to a more sustainable society (an example of SDG reporting can be found in the latest Ākina impact report.)
It’s time to go beyond sustainability
As society has pursued our sustainability goals, it has become clear that sustaining our current economic system is directly at odds with sustaining the health of our people and our planet.
It’s well known that the unsustainable nature of our economy can be traced back to the industrial revolution. This has built the capitalist economy that provides us with the comforts of modern life.
On the flip side, greenhouse gas emissions have risen fast since the revolution began. This is directly causing climate change, which is having dramatic negative effects on the health of our people and our planet. For the sake of “growth”, can we and future generations really afford these compromises?
“It is now unequivocal that human influence is causing climate change”
IPCC Chair Hoesung Lee clearly stated in his keynote address at 2021’s COP26 in Glasgow that humans have caused climate change, and that we can also reverse it.
The system we’ve created values the health of the economy more than the health of our society and the environment. Even more, it places them in opposition.
Sustainability tells us that to regain the balance between economic, societal, and environmental health, we need to place less value on economic growth. Unfortunately, the system we’ve created requires economic growth to provide us with a ‘good life’.
For example, sustaining the earth’s natural resources requires us to scale back the rate that we extract materials and energy from the planet. This means we can’t produce as many goods and services. Businesses have less to sell, and consumers have less to buy. Sustainability becomes all about sacrifices.
This model of sustainability is never going to work, because it results in doing ‘less bad’ stuff, while sacrificing our quality of life. We’re still heading on the same train tracks towards the same, crappy destination. We’re just getting there slower.
What if we could jump onto a different set of tracks that take us to a new and better destination? That’s regeneration.
Regeneration gives us the new language we need
Regeneration is about creating a world where our economy, our society, and our environment mutually benefit one another. To achieve this, we need to rethink what a ‘good life’ really is. This concept of regeneration is not new - it is reflected in Te Ao Māori and First Nations world views from around the globe.
What if we could find happiness by creating and consuming things that are good for the people who made them, and make our planet healthier? What if we could run businesses that exist to make the world a better place? What if our day-to-day lives got us more connected to nature and the people we care about?
This is regeneration.
Regeneration is a way of working that leaves people and our planet better off. To explain regeneration, we can take inspiration from Regeneration Project’s description of the five capitals. This is an evolution of the five capitals that are often talked about in the context of sustainability.
Diagram: Regeneration Projects
The five capitals show the five different assets that we should nurture, in order to create a regenerative world. A regenerative system is one where all five capitals are thriving.
Regeneration in practice
There’s no hard and fast formula for being regenerative, but there are some excellent frameworks and examples that we can learn from. To start your organisation along the path of regeneration, we suggest taking a look at the resources below.
As we start to switch the dial from sustainability to regeneration at Ākina, here are some of the resources that are inspiring our team and mahi:
Doughnut Economics - a compass for human prosperity in the 21st century, with the aim of meeting the needs of all people within the means of the living planet. We especially love the Te Reo Māori doughnut.
The Wellbeing Economy Alliance - a collaboration of organisations, alliances, movements and individuals working towards a wellbeing economy, delivering human and ecological wellbeing.
Regen Melbourne - a network of individuals and organisations working together to ensure a safe, just and prosperous future for Melbourne.
Keen to continue the conversation?
Did this blog spark new ideas that you’d love to discuss? Did we say anything you disagree with?
We’d love to hear what you thought, and what regeneration means to you. Get in touch with clementine.baker@akina.org.nz