It’s time to regenerate!
Could regeneration be the answer to the paradigm shift that will lead us towards a healthier coexistence with each other and with our planet, before it is too late?
“The time is ripe, and we are ready to collectively embark on this transformation of what we call regenerative societies.” Laura Storm, author of Regenerative Leadership
In 2020, we wanted to focus our Telltale Stories on hope and possible solutions to the climate emergency. This led us to some fascinating people who call themselves ‘systems thinkinkers’, and the discovery of the concept of regenerative business, culture and society.
This article is a series of extracts from the conversations we’ve had with the following pioneers:
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu, product designer, sociologist, systems thinker, Ted Talker, and Founder of Disrupt Design and the learning platform Unschool.
Laura Storm, Greenbiz World Changer, and author of Regenerative Leadership.
Jenny Andersson, senior brand strategist, and Founder of We Activate The Future and The Really Regenerative Centre.
Emily Olson, co-founder and CEO of ReGenfriends a platform that brings together brands, organisations, and consumers to collaborate on regenerative business solutions.
We hope it will inspire you to question the status quo and join us on our exploration of possible solutions!
Chapter 1: The Problem
A brief reflection of the current situation and what has lead us here.
Laura Storm:
“What we see in the current leadership and business logic is very much a reductionist and distracted mindset of controlling, of competing, of winning and of drawing out resources from the planet. It doesn’t really care about what kind of legacy the company leaves behind but is focussed on the shareholder perspective of ‘the business of business, is business’, making money is the sole focus. That has meant that we are now in the midst of a very chaotic situation; we have lost 80% of the forests, the lungs of the planet, our insect population has decreased by 75% in the last 3 decades alone, we will soon have more plastic in our oceans than marine life, our soils are depleted from critical nutrients and minerals that our bodies need to function, I could go on and on, the climate is breaking down.”
Graph 1: The graph below shows that humanity has progressively exceeded the resources that Earth has time to replenish in a year, since the 1970s.
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu:
“All of us are in a dynamic and interdependent relationship with nature; there is not one single human or animal, any living thing, that doesn’t require nature to survive. Yet, as a species, we’ve completely disconnected ourselves from those systems, somehow thinking we are beyond them. We take all of our resources from nature and we put back pollutants and things that erode the ability for those systems to sustain themselves.”
“The reality is that, when you look at a big issue like climate change or ocean plastic waste or any of the massive environmental issues that we face, such as the 6th great extinction, what we are actually looking at is a symptom of a bigger problem and that bigger problem is consumption. It is a numbers game, it is the number of people and the amount of things that they want to have.”
Jenny Andersson:
“It took me a while to realise that there is more than just that individual culture of more and more -mine it, make it, dump it. That is where we are in the world at the moment. If you look at the extractive economy that we live within, it requires an enormous transformation to be able to change that toward something that is more regenerative.”
Emily Olson:
“My entire career has been in trying to make a positive impact, and about two years ago, I found myself sitting on a curb, there were ashes falling from the sky on me and I couldn’t breathe. I was about two miles from the 2017 Northern California Wildfires, and I didn’t know if they were going to spread to my house or not. I remember sitting on this curb and thinking I was going to get evacuated and also thinking, whatever we have done, as sustainability business leaders, it hasn’t worked. If it had, I wouldn’t be sitting on this curb and we wouldn’t be having this climate crisis.”
Chapter 2: The bridge
Reflections on past, present and future mindsets.
Jenny Andersson:
“We have to find a way to transform from where we are today, which is not in a good place, to something that we haven’t actually imagined yet and we are struggling to imagine. We are today, as an economy, the caterpillar. We need to get to a butterfly stage, but the critical part is the bridge in between. How do we do that, as human beings, as businesses, as economies, as regions, as nations? Nobody knows. It is an experimental journey, and if we come out the other side, we will come out well -and it is an experimental journey that needs to happen while we decarbonise our entire economy, which is no small task -but it is exciting to think about, that there is biological potential, a psychological potential for us as a species to cross over to something new.”
Emily Olson:
“I feel that as consumers and as business people we have named and shamed those mega corporations that really run the world instead of taking them under our wing and trying to help and teach. If we had gone about it that way, a friend trying to help a friend, then we wouldn’t be in this situation, because those big companies that are running the world would have learnt a different and more regenerative path forward. [Do you think companies are open to a new way of doing business?]
“I do, and the reason is that when you speak to individuals within those companies, most people do care about the future of the planet, the future they leave behind for their kids”
Emily Olson
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu:
“The big, big problem is that people want simple solutions to complex issues. They want to know that they can just recycle their way out of the problem and not have to think differently about the world that we live in and the future that we want to have. To me, that is a really big issue, because if we don’t have more creative minds, creative businesses, and pioneering industries, willing to be at the edge of comfort, then we are going to continue to replicate the system that created the problem.”
“It is a journey that requires a set of pioneers who are willing to really disrupt the way that we do things.”
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu
“There is a fundamental shift that needs to occur, but it doesn’t need to be about taking things away. It is about building the opportunity for change. That is really where I see the most potential; when organisations, individuals, who make up those organisations, representatives of government, see this as an incredible opportunity to reconfigure the way we do things that add value throughout our economy, rather than to take it away.”
“[It requires] a rapid reconfiguration of, not only the supply chain, but the value chain, because most things we create now are valueless, they are designed to have significantly reduced value. That has a cultural shift element, because we have all become addicted to ‘cheap’. We have more disposable income to buy more disposable things, but that cycle is fundamentally in opposition to the other big thing in life that we value, which is family, and young people that we bring into the world that we are ultimately giving a legacy of more environmental and social decay.”
Chapter 3: A possible new beginning
Exploration of what regenerative business is and how it can be adopted.
What is Regenerative Business and how is it different from sustainability?
Jenny Andersson:
“For me, regenerative means; ‘how can we create a world where we leverage the best of the human spirit rather than the worst?’ -which means division, competition, hierarchy, companies doing battle with one another, people doing battle with each other. But also; ‘how can we regenerate the environment from which we have extracted so much?’ -whether that is regenerative agriculture, a completely different process to which we grow and produce our food, or whether it is simply regenerating landscape, where we’ve deforested. I think it is really different from sustainability, by bringing both the human aspect and the environmental aspect together.”
Laura Storm:
“Sustainability is the notion that you don’t cause more harm. But we have already caused so much harm that we need a radical new mindset. A mindset that is regenerative by design, which means that we are regenerating land, regenerating ourselves, and regenerating what we have already destroyed in our process of designing life on planet earth. So, regenerative leadership, in a short sentence, is to create more value than you take.”
Emily Olson:
“The easiest way to define it is that it has a net positive impact. Beyond that, the business definition is 4 things: It is based on interconnected living systems, that are intrinsically motivated to do good, that are accountable for adding value to the system as a whole and they are self-regulating.”
Graph 2: The below graph is an illustration of the current degenerative ‘Technical System Design’, on the left, and the regenerative ‘Living System Design’, on the right.
What are the biggest obstacles for the transition to take place, right now, and how can we overcome these barriers?
Laura Storm:
“The biggest obstacle is our mindset, our level of consciousness that is still so locked into an old rigid distracted mindset. What I see is that those in power, right now, are still clinging on to that old paradigm, because it is scary from a psychological perspective to embark into a completely new territory.”
“It is definitely proven to be completely possible. Of course we need the right kinds of conditions, we need C-level support, when we embark on such a transition, but it can start in various ways. We have examples of companies where it has started from a push from the bottom, a kind of demand. There is thankfully a bigger and bigger demand for working for companies with the right kind of purpose, right kind of mission and movement that aligns with [people’s] own personal mission and purpose in life.”
Jenny Anderson:
“We need to start measuring things more qualitatively than quantitatively. That means getting away from things like GDP and going more towards wellness and attributes of wellness. That we measure how well a society is doing by health of its soils, by the health of its water, by the wellbeing of its people.
“How do we shift mindsets?
How do we manage the fact that most businesses are limited companies with shareholders that have to deliver profit?
How do we manage anxiety around leaderships’ desire to change, but having to operate in that world?”
Jenny Andersson
“We have to tell stories for people that aren’t about how terrible the change that is coming will be, but what the positive opportunities are. It is up to governments and global businesses, along with citizen pressure.”
Emily Olson:
“…it requires the infrastructure of governments and finance and investments to start to find ways to prioritise doing the right thing, and to make it economically attractive for people to do the right thing. I don’t think you can lecture to people about what they should do or blame. You’ve got to design a society so that it is more attractive for people to do the right thing.”
“If we go into big corporations and say, ‘we are going to reorder the structure of this entire corporation and we are not going to focus on quarterly revenues and profits, we are going to focus on sustainability metrics, we are probably going to be banging our head against the wall, but if you talked to the same person and said ‘how have you voted with the purchases you’ve made today?’ then this really unifies everyone, we are all consumers and we all share the earth. What are we demanding as customers? What are we saying with our purchases? Commerce creates culture and we need to ask what kind of culture we are making with our purchases. We are co-creating our culture along with these brands and organisations.”
Is there a financial argument for becoming a regenerative business?
Emily Olson:
“If we are talking about regenerative business solutions, they are actually more cost effective. If we are thinking about long term impact, there are arguments to be made that, absolutely, we are going to be making more money, if we take care of our planet, our products and our people now. I get that ‘business as usual’ mentality of ‘if I am not showing quarterly returns, then these initiatives don’t matter’ and that is a valid argument.
“What people need to understand is that, as consumers we have so much more power than people think about on a daily basis.”
Emily Olson
We conducted a major study with 3.000 people in the US […]and we asked, ‘Are you satisfied with the current green and sustainable product offering?’ and only 34% said they were satisfied. People do want it and they are only just starting to speak up and voting with their dollar.”
Laura Storm:
“A great example of a company that has transitioned very successfully, is a company called Interface. It is a global carpet manufacturer, and it was a very conventional one, not in any way sustainable. One day, the owner of the company had an epiphany and he thought to himself: ‘what legacy am I leaving behind?’. He was shocked and horrified when he realised that the ripple effects that his life had helped contribute to were overall very negative, when looking at the eco-systemic damage that he had caused through his company.”
“Interface is today incredibly successful financially and they are in the midst of transforming all of their production, mimicked on the principles of a forest: [they asked themselves] ‘How can our factories actually clean water? How can we turn sunlight into energy? How can we make sure we only use regenerative materials? How can we make sure that we nurture positive and regenerative partnerships?’”
“For example, one of their product lines is only using materials where they pay fishermen to also fish up the nets that are floating around in the oceans, and that plastic is then transformed into a specific fibre in a product line that Interface is making. So having that mindset as a regenerative leader, that things are interconnected and through my actions, I can create those positive ripple effects throughout the value chain.”
What advice would you give…to business leaders:
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu
“What I can suggest is that every industry has the potential to be at the forefront of change. The real opportunity lies in organisations that are willing to completely reimagine the way that they deliver the functionality that they provide in the economy.”
Laura Storm:
“When embarking on such a journey, you have to remember that ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ -we actually have a chapter dedicated to the importance of patience in our book, and the importance of compassion, and just knowing that turning the ship around requires time and patience. In our book we offer a DNA analysis tool. By answering a few questions, you can get an overview of where [your business is], in terms of being a regenerative business and based on that analysis we then suggest and advise where you can start. We also offer some concrete steps on how to get started.”
…to individuals:
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu:
“When it comes to individuals, we need to question and challenge ourselves to think about what it is that brings value to our lives, because most of us buy things because we get the associated benefits of happiness, and status, and convenience, and so challenging ourselves on the value propositions of the things that we buy and bring into our lives is really important. The priority of convenience over sustainability is a big one. I did a project for the United Nations called The Anatomy of Action, which is a peer reviewed process that has 15 everyday actions that anyone can take that is validated by the UN. It shows a roadmap for what people can do.”
Laura Storm:
“A great example is the Swedish school girl Greta, who started to have these climate strikes every Friday, and look at the ripple effects that she has managed to create to millions of millions all over the world. She has become such an influential voice and it has only been a little over a year. It is so impressive and it is the proof in the pudding -people crave change, they want change, they desire change and there is this demand that companies need to get on board with. There is a readiness for change.”
Jenny Andersson:
“One of the most important things that I learnt is to have a vision and a mission that is bigger than yourself”
…to government:
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu:
“When it comes to government, the really big and challenging question of our time is, how do we redesign the economic incentives of success? We’ve got GDP and we know that GDP is fundamentally flawed. It worked well to get people out of poverty and that means that it achieved its goal for the time that it was needed, but now we are seeing that it is flawed in relation to the other things that are important, like wellbeing, happiness, a cohesive and successful society, and sustainability.”
“How do we design an economic system that incentivises and motivates economic activities so that we have a healthy and functioning society?”
Dr. Leyla Acaroglu
“One of the things we need to understand is that the future is depending on the actions that we take today. Whatever future we get is the product of our making.”
To summarise, here are 7 take-outs:
- We are in an interdependent relationship with nature and are damaging the very ecosystem that we all depend on.
- We extract more resources from Earth than it can replenish, and the excessive amounts of Co2, chemicals and waste we return pollute the environment (leaving us in a depleted state).
- Regeneration is a concept that seeks to add more value than it extracts, within various systems, not just economic, but social, cultural, agricultural, and more.
- Regenerative systems could restore the prospects of our own future and that of future generations in the face of the climate emergency, but it also makes business sense and attracts talent.
- The main barrier for changing the current system is culture; from our profit oriented business and political culture, to our materialist consumer culture, which are at the expense of all else.
- We’re likely to see more people seek greater transparency from the businesses they interact with and want to be part of a positive change.
- But ultimately we need the support of businesses and governments to enable a systems change.
Take part in the discussion
I would like to invite anyone who has read this to further consider some of the questions posed by these leading thinkers:
How do we change our current consumer culture, which offers us cheap and conveniently disposable goods, but that hides that they are at the expense of damage to the environment and people?
How do we design an economic system that incentivises and motivates economic activities so that we have a healthy and functioning society?
How do we enable business to become regenerative of environment and people’s welfare rather than degenerative?
How do we manage the fact that most businesses are limited companies with shareholders that have to deliver profit?
How do we manage anxiety around leaderships’ desire to change, but having to operate in that world?
How do we make it more attractive for people to do the right thing?
How do we offer solutions without replicating the system that created the problem?
Alexandra Clark is a research & strategy consultant and Founder of creative research collective, Telltale Research, and Zuzanna Jakubczak, is an independent videographer, Zuzanna J. Together they produce Telltale Stories, to share stories from inspiring people across business, culture & the environment.
To view filmed interviews with inspiring people at the forefront of business, culture and the environment, follow Telltale Stories on YouTube.
