Bonfire Tales for Regenerative Futures — DARF Event Dialogue

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Design Activists for Regenerative Futures

10 min readMar 2, 2023

All around us we see evidence of the capitalist paradigm breaking down, it is not working for people or the planet. In spite of this, how can we envision a way to contribute to safe, fair, just and regenerative futures?

In October 2022 Design Activists for Regenerative Futures (DARF) voluntary collective hosted an exploratory dialogue on this question with our new seasonal event ‘Bonfire Tales’. We sat in a community around our virtual bonfire to both look to the future and reflect on our transition into a new season.

Single green fern on burned, charcoal forest floor. Text overlay reads “Bonfire Tales for Regenerative Futures” at the top and “Oct 27th, 9:30am-11am PDT, 4:30–6pm UTC.” — Event flyer designed by DARF Co-founder Hazal Doğa Kılıçkap

Part 1 — What are we hospicing and midwifing at the close of 2022?

We opened with a reflective check-in to see what the community is hospicing [letting go of] and midwifing [bringing into being or leaning into] as they shift into the Autumn season, inspired by the way this is framed by Cassie Robinson.

Some key sentiments emerged, such as participant Micha Nicheva’s desire to hospice limitless growth because it does not align with nature which is seasonal, cyclical and has limits. The group sought to hospice fear, scarcity thinking, individualism and nihilism.

White slide with multicoloured word cloud. Title text reads “What do you let go? (hospice). The biggest words are “fear, limitless growth, individualism, secrecy, jealousy.” — *Above: Mentimeter wordcloud by community members about what they want to hospice as we leave summer and enter Autumn.*

White slide with multicoloured word cloud. Title text reads “What do you midwife?” The biggest words are “acceptance, collaboration and courage.” — *Above: Mentimeter wordcloud by community members about what they want to midwife as we leave summer and enter Autumn.*

We were drawn in by the uplifting sentiments emerging under midwifing, which focused on themes such as togetherness, love, authenticity, imagination and purpose to name a few examples. We hope to support living into these values together at DARF in 2023.

Part 2 — Inspirational speakers

We were honoured to host two brilliant speakers to spark discussion by sharing their work and ideas. Starting with Rachel Beth Egenhoefer, a US based Design Professor at the University of San Francisco, Sustainability Researcher, Systems Leader and Critical Maker who uses design as a tool for social change. Presenting alongside Ahsan Khan, UK-based Climate Labs Design Director and Co-founder, Design Partner with Power to Change, Design Council Expert for Design for Planet Strategy and Words of Colour & Culture Heroes Consultant.

Green fern on black, charcoal forest floor and faded as background. Two circles with photos of the guest speakers, their names and job roles overlaid on top.

Rachel Beth’s talk focused on the theory and practice of designing regenerative futures, reflecting on the link between human health and planetary health through the metaphor of burnout. Ahsan’s talk was an exploration of Climate Labs’s strategic design process and use of progressive methods for regenerative design and system change across a wide variety of projects.

A huge thank you to both speakers for their stunning presentations! Their content set the community alight with discussion and questions, culminating in an inspiring and expansive dialogue.

Check out the event recording or read the key takeaways below:

Event recording above. Watch guest speakers Rachel Beth Egenhoefer and Ahsan Khan talk about their research and practice, and what regenerative design means for them in the work they do.

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer’s talk — key insights

Cover slide of presentation with large title that says “Burning ourselves out is burning the planet out. Changing the conversation on sustainabile design to regenerative design.”

Rachel Beth highlighted the difference between sustainability and regeneration, and the preconceptions of Sustainable Design she faces. She explored the different levels of design, from products and services to processes, policies and systems. This provided a bridge into her thoughts on systems thinking and how exploration of leverage points to intervene in the system, as defined by Donella Meadows, is integral to her teaching and understanding of regeneration.

“No one designer can resolve for all problems but we can solve for multiple issues.” — Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

Slide showing 12 illustrated, annotated leverage points balanced on a fulcrum from lowest with less impact going up to harder, more impactful ones. — Above: Rachel Beth Egenhoefer’s illustration of Donella Meadow’s leverage points for change. Leverage points on the left are easier to implement but often have less impact, whilst those up the scale are to harder to implement but have more impact.

One of her top points was that it’s important to remember with leverage points that cause and effect are not always clear cut and that “we do not live in a linear world, we live in an intersectional world.” For instance, changing a policy without changing behaviour or mindsets doesn’t actually result in change. Changing mindsets is a high lever and therefore very challenging. Rachel Beth used acupuncture as a metaphor for how we can identify multiple levers to address problems at different levels.

“There has been rigorous research on what will actually have an impact… There are not many designers going to school who want to make sexy cement or alternative cooling, but there should be.”
— Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

Stacks of pale grey bricks. Text overlayed says “Alternative Cement”. — *Above: Slide from Rachel Beth’s talk showing the impact of alternative cements from Project Drawdown.*

Critically, Rachel Beth emphasised how within the climate crisis, just like other issues, those who are empowered are often exploiting those who are oppressed, and how therefore climate justice and other fights for justice are deeply interlinked.

“So climate justice is racial justice is economic justice is health justice is so much more… These things are all deeply related to each other.”
— Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

Three circles sit inside one another. The innoermost labeled “individual”, the next outermost labeled “social” and the most outermost labeled “structural.” In the centre of the smallest circle are 7 overlapping circles labelled “race, gender, religion, class, sex, ability, location”.

Rachel Beth closed the circle by returning to the topic of burnout, what we need to be regenerative and the connection between human and planetary regeneration.

“We all need activities that will energise and regenerate us. That looks different for everyone. How do you find fulfillment outside the capitalist system?
What will you do to regenerate yourself?
What will you do to regenerate your community?
What will you do to regenerate our planet?”
— Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

Ahsan Khan’s talk insights: Sustainability at the heart of Climate Labs

Blue slide with large white titling reading “We are a design strategy consultancy… sustainability is at the heart of what we do.” Names and contacts are listed below: Ahsan Khan, ahsank@climatelabs.uk, Phil Spencer, ps@climatelabs.uk and climatelabs.uk, @climatelabs_uk.

Ahsan is the Design Director and Co-Founder of Climate Labs, an organisation working at the intersection of climate and social justice, working with a systems approach. They are asking themselves:

How does designing for communities and regenerative futures work?
And when it comes to sustainability — what are we sustaining? — Ahsan Khan

He analysed the journey of sustainable design from green/eco design and biomimicry, to an ecological lens which considers more deeply and holistically costs, social innovation and design for transitions.

Climate Labs are driven by their awareness time is running out, the sense of urgency and emergency. They are working with organisations struggling to make change due to policy and governance within the space.

Diagram with 8 pale rectangles connected and dotted line and surrounding a highlighted, green box that says “Design for…”. The other boxes contain the words “sustainability, decolonisation, social innovation, justice, systems change, climate + nature = Earth, communities, regenerative futures.”

Climate Labs’ Methodology

Climate Labs’ team has been involved in conversations, development and roll out of the Design Council’s relaunch of the Double Diamond framework as the Systemic-design Framework. They apply the framework’s four characteristics (see image below) to understand and orient themselves and their clients in terms of what their role and value of their work could be.

Ahsan described how their process starts with discovery and definition in the beginning, followed by identifying different interventions (corresponding with the leverage points Rachel Beth discussed). The team applies different ways of thinking to come up with solutions, all whilst considering project relationships and how they are holding the space.

Two diagrams. A circle on the left showing 6 principles of the systemic design framework in separate circles. Next two four squares with descriptions of each of the 4 characteristics of the systemic design framework inside.

Inspiring case studies from Climate Labs

Ahsan talked through a number of project case studies, including one focused on the challenge of air pollution in school environments. Climate Labs used air pollution monitors to do a mapping exercise and co-design with children new routes for coming to school. There were many unexpected ripple effects in terms of behaviour change in the school community, for example the local council erected signs and parents and local police got involved in progressing the work. This led the team to think more about how everyone in the school ecosystem could get involved in the change.

Text and 5 sustainable development goal icons are next to 6 images. Four are photographs of children working on paper templates and the signage they created in the project. Three are close ups of the templates used and posters on air pollution designed to educate people. — Above: Climate Labs’ co-design work with schools to reduce air pollution

In another project, Climate Labs applied Donella Meadow’s approach to systems thinking methods to understand the intersectionality of pro-sustainability behaviours amongst marginalised communities. They generated an evolving diagram to understand what was going on and how to work within these spaces in a really safe and just way (image below).

Four sustainability icons and the project title are next to an image of ‘Systems Thinking’ book cover by Donella Meadows. There is a bubble diagram showing the intersectionality of behaviours among the BAME community. There are two small screenshots of post-it clusters from the design process. There is a screenshot of four people in a zoom call smiling.

A diagram of a system map showing “how climate justice and social justice are interconnected”. Text reads “The map highlights the vicious circles we currently face and how to make them virtuous circles.” — Example of higher level mapping to understand the relationship between climate justice and social justice. Ahsan emphasised that “ the intersection of how that works is a moving target.”

A third contrasting case Ahsan brought was focused on ecological interior design, design strategy and wellbeing. Led by his Co-founder Phil Spencer, they worked with a variety of clients to explore how to bring in nature and biophilic design principles into physical space (see project sketches below).

Project title and four sustainable development goal icons are next to 4 architectural, virtual mock-ups of interior spaces. One shows a floor schematic, the three others show a long dining table and workspace surrounded by green plants hanging from the ceiling.

Ahsan concluded his talk focusing on what’s most critical in progressive ways of working:

“It’s important we find ways to hold space, come together to be nourished, collaborate and connect.” — Ahsan Khan

Part 3 — Community dialogue and Q&A

“I’m curious to hear where competition is useful? “
— Dora Hietavirta

Rachel Beth explored how the problem with competition is that it’s tied to capitalism. She put forward that “to make competition useful it would have to be divorced from capitalism.”

Ahsan suggested what we need is a collaborative and progressive approach to competition, which would involve people investigating how they can unite and merge to create something better, rather than competing and reinventing the wheel.

Community member Anna Bertmark highlighted that nature is full of competition (trees for sunlight, animals for food) but self-regulates to benefit the bigger mission of evolution.

“How can we keep ‘regenerative’ from becoming an empty signifier like ‘sustainable’ has? Do you define regenerative design principles as strict or as part of a spectrum?“
— Anna Bertmark

Ahsan referred to adrienne maree brown’s work on how we are in constant flux and change which we need to embrace, and that language will adapt, change and grow.

Rachel Beth articulated Regenerative Design principles as a spectrum, not necessarily clearly defined. They are different for every context eg. farming in California vs. UK. Its definition is to create more energy to nourish, replenish and heal. She believes it comes down to dialogue and education to mitigate cooption.

“Can we formulate some of what you said as the question of “what are the designers’ roles in social justice movements”? And moving further from there, do we first learn from how people come together and organise to drive these movements? Do we use our participatory/co-design tools or skills to “[not] design”? Where do we start?” — Aslihan Oguz

Rachel Beth focused on the challenges within education and how we change the conversation. For instance conventional University curricula are very individualistic, with individual grades, theses and projects so how we educate designers needs to change. ie. redesigning systems not things. Ultimately creating new cultural and community norms is key.

Conversation culminated with how we learn by embodying and living the lessons, not just learning them within institutions, and how to engage children in these topics. Ahsan shared some excellent advice based on how his team’s work’:

“How can we still create entry points in the digital world for children to connect with nature? Building that empathy with nature is really useful.” — Ahsan Khan

Climate Labs has experimented with sensory approaches, for instance asking the children to close their eyes, listen to the wind, birds and trees. Getting them to slow down and connect with the local birds and birdsongs. Teaching them to identify birds both visually and through their song. They drew ecosystems with the children, helping them start to understand food chains and webs, using the story of wolves in Yellowstone Park — how introducing them changed the landscape.

We all agreed connecting children and people to what’s around them in nature and their own ecosystem is a great entry and leverage point for change.

Stay in touch with DARF

We’d love to know your thoughts or questions in the comments! If you found this valuable stay tuned for future events, gatherings and happenings by following DARF on Linkedin or Twitter.

More about our wonderful speakers!

Rachel Beth Egenhoefer

Rachel Beth is a design professor, sustainability researcher, systems leader and critical maker who uses design as a tool for social change. Her work advocates to change the conversations on sustainable design — from designing stuff to designing systems, from individual to intersectional, from exclusive to inclusive, from sustainable to regenerative. Egenhoefer is currently a full professor in Design at the University of San Francisco, where she has taught since 2009. She is the editor of the Routledge Handbook of Sustainable Design (2017) and is currently working on a revised and updated new edition. You can read more by her on substack at Regenerative Conversations.

Web: www.rachelbeth.net
Substack: regenerating.substack.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-beth-egenhoefer
Twitter: @RBEgenhoefer

Ahsan Khan

Ahsan is the design director and Co-Founder of Climate Labs, a multidisciplinary design consultancy working at the intersection of regenerative communities and a just transition. Currently a design partner with Power to Change, co-designing the new Climate Action Funding Programme. Working with clients across business, communities and academia for example Design Council, where he is part of 100 experts working on the Design for Planet strategy. He also consults in the third sector for Words of Colour & Culture Heroes focusing on strategic design, creating value through a systems practice approach to understand EDI challenges to benefit marginalised communities.

Company site: www.climatelabs.uk
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/ahsan-khan-design/
Twitter: AhsanKhan_UK

Topical resources shared by participants

Design Methods and Frameworks:

Books

adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy
Alastair McIntosh, Soil and Soul
Donna J. Haraway, Staying with the Trouble (Experimental Futures): Making Kin in the Chthulucene
Gabrielle F. Principe, Your Brain on Childhood: The Unexpected Side Effects of Classrooms, Ballparks, Family Rooms, and the Minivan
Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics
Paul Hawken, The Ecology of Commerce

Other Resources:

https://app.tickettailor.com/events/systemschangefinland/771518/r/dh
Permaculture Women’s Guild: https://www.permaculturewomen.com/
https://landback.org/
https://sogoreate-landtrust.org/
Alice Waters — https://edibleschoolyard.org/about-us
https://tinkergarten.com/
https://earth-regenerators.mn.co/posts/a-network-of-regenerative-bioregions
https://doughnuteconomics.org/events/210
https://www.prosocial.world/
Solidarity Economy, Nonprofit Quarterly

Credits

Thank you to the DARF volunteer team who I co-organised the event alongside: Zeynep Falay von Flittner, Carl Quinn, Hazal Doga Kilickap, Andrea Gilly and to Shreya Salian, Ahsan Khan and Rachel Beth Egenhoefer for proofreading this blog.