In 2025, Unearthodox invested deeply in narrative transformation, reframing regeneration as relational, justice-centred and plural. Before systems can change, imagination must expand.
Unearthodox strengthened its thought leadership also through international media engagement, including a feature interview with Innovation Director Anca Damerell in the Romanian magazine Revista Biz. The piece highlights Unearthodox’s systems and futures thinking approach, challenging mainstream sustainability narratives and advocating for deeper, systemic transformation. By bringing these perspectives into public discourse, Unearthodox continues to expand the conversation beyond technical solutions toward rethinking underlying assumptions, relationships, and pathways to regeneration.
“Systems thinking helps us see climate change and ecological collapse not as isolated technical problems but as signs of a deeper disconnection: from nature, from others, and from more diverse ways of knowing.” – Anca Damerell, Director of Innovation at Unearthodox
With the Creative Futures for Nature programme, we are pushing the boundaries of futures thinking, exploring and testing new ways of thinking about conservation and human–nature relationships. The programme, which started with the Sci-Fi, AI and the Futures for Nature, an exploration of how science fiction shapes AI predictions, then evolved into a deeper inquiry into AI ethics. In collaboration with Gustavo Nogueira, we engaged three Indigenous communities in Brazil – Oceânico, Instituto Afrofuturo, and Yia Asé Egi Omim – to explore consent, sovereignty and representation in embedding Indigenous knowledge into AI systems.
In parallel, this work has sparked artistic collaborations with Indigenous artists, who are translating key insights into visual pieces that guide viewers through an inquisitive journey. These artworks serve two purposes: to make knowledge more accessible, and to invite engagement with complex ethical questions through alternative, non-extractive formats. We plan to use these pieces in exhibitions and dialogues to foster ethical and imaginative engagement with communities and stakeholders, helping Unearthodox connect experimental, conceptual work with tangible, sensory narratives and invite wider audiences into imaginative participation.
As part of the Creative Futures for Nature programme we are also delving into new ways of thinking about the future of nature conservation and human–nature relationships. We partnered with the University of Cambridge (UK) on a research project exploring how different perceptions of time shape how Indigenous communities plan for nature and the future. In Kenya, a dedicated researcher with linguistic and cultural links to the region engaged with the Ogiek community. This work focused on building foundations for ethical, community-led research in futures thinking, particularly around consent-based engagement. This led to the development of a Community-Based Research Checklist, a practical tool to support more consistent guidance within Unearthodox and across the wider sector.
We also organised a series of carefully curated online dialogues titled ‘Collaborative Research on Pluriversal, Inclusive and Just Futures’. Three interconnected sessions engaged 24 individuals from 6 continents, 12 sectors, 20 institutions, and 8 domains.
These sessions were:
"There’s never been a more challenging time to be a leader – unrelenting information overload, rapid change, and so much ‘expertise’. These dialogues showed the power of weaving insights and reflections to let powerful questions emerge, shaping my leadership and connecting aspiration and philosophy to pragmatic, strategic choices. They’ve also settled my feelings in these times – leadership now requires balancing our nervous systems to stay creative and clear-minded. An antidote to overwhelm, they matter deeply, and I hope we can bring them to more people leading into the hard space for nature and new futures." – Melanie Ryan, Unearthodox CEO
The programme combined artistic collaboration, Indigenous knowledge, and foresight, contributing to emerging discussion on what ethical and imaginative leadership in nature conservation can look like. Moving forward, this will inform our engagements with key stakeholders as we continue to nurture the ecosystem for transformational change.
Across these initiatives, we observed a clear and encouraging pattern: regenerative narratives are gaining traction. More conservation actors are engaging with systems thinking and approaches that move beyond extraction or mitigation towards renewal. Organisations are asking more nuanced questions, exploring cross-sector collaboration, and reconsidering inherited assumptions about impact and success.
We also saw increased visibility and legitimacy of justice-centred approaches. Conversations about power, equity, and historical responsibility are no longer peripheral; they are increasingly shaping strategy and decision-making. These shifts matter because narratives are key points of influence. They have the power to shape norms, which in turn play an important role in influencing funding flows that fuel transformative ideas and turn them into reality. Reimagining is not just aspirational; it is the first strategic step towards change. Connection and imagination must ultimately translate into practice if we want to see meaningful transformation.
Urgency & Deep Time
Responding to urgent crises while ensuring actions are rooted in the ancestral wisdom of the place and its people, honouring the generations before and after us.
Context:
Climate change, biodiversity loss and social inequalities demand immediate action, but regenerative approaches involve deep, intentional healing that takes time.
Invitation:
How might we design for flexibility, responsiveness, and growth without becoming chaotic or incoherent? How might we let something new emerge without forcing it into pre-existing boxes? Where is the structure needed for safety, and where can you leave room for emergence?
Balancing personal responsibility and inner healing with deep structural shifts. Ensuring the burden does not fall on the individual alone, but working collectively so that systems, institutions, and structures also evolve.
Context:
Neoliberal approaches often place the responsibility of change on individuals, while systems (policy, economy, governance) often remain unchanged.
Invitation:
Where should innovation begin - with individual transformation, cultural shifts, or structural change? And how do these levels speak to each other? How might our work avoid placing disproportionate burden on individuals, while still cultivating agency, accountability, and collective momentum?
Technology is but a tool and cannot replace the care, trust and relationships that bind living systems.
Context:
Technological interventions are easily measurable and scalable, while relationships based on care and trust are harder to ‘quantify’.
Invitation:
How can we ensure that technological solutions are also guided by relational wisdom and not just efficiency or scale? Who and what is held sacred in the design process? How can innovation improve relationships rather than replace or instrumentalise them?
A bold, honest act and not a shinier version of the extractive system that maintains the status quo.
Context:
Regenerative approaches often get absorbed and aligned into the very structures they are trying to shift.
Invitation:
How might we protect truly regenerative vision from becoming a more ‘sustainable’ version of harm? How might we root truly radical change in care rather than spectacle?
Honouring ancestral and place-based wisdoms while navigating the existing and deeply embedded colonial structures and institutional realities.
Context:
Regenerative and Indigenous ways of knowing often challenge dominant, institutional logics about funding, metrics, and legitimacy.
Invitation:
How might we ensure that regenerative innovation navigates institutional terrain without being captured by it? In what ways could it hold space for ancestral, land-based, or community-rooted wisdoms that institutions often cannot see, name, or hold? How might we make room for refusal, for reparation - not just inclusion?
Rooting in place, people, and story - while staying in solidarity with global movements and shared planetary challenges. Protecting local knowledge without isolating it.
Context:
Working at the local level ensures relevance and trust, but can be limited in scale. Global collaborations help spread ideas, but risk overlooking local cultures and ecological needs.
Invitation:
How might regenerative innovation stay rooted in the specific needs and histories of a place - while also being in dialogue with broader systems of learning and solidarity? How might we protect the sovereignty of the local while honouring the relational nature of global engagements?
Shifting from extracting ideas to building with communities and ecosystems. Moving beyond consultation toward shared ownership and mutual learning.
Context:
Knowledge, particularly that passed on through oral traditions and cultural practices, has too often been dismissed as unscientific and unreliable.
Invitation:
How might we co-create this regenerative innovation with communities, ecosystems, and epistemologies that are often excluded from formal knowledge systems? Who is involved not just in testing or feedback, but in imagining and shaping the very foundations of the innovation? What forms of reciprocity can we build in?
Staying open to the unexpected and new while ensuring trust, accountability, and momentum.
Context:
Project timelines often push for structure, deliverables and seek control. Regeneration invites us to be comfortable with uncertainty and allow space for the unknown to emerge.
Invitation:
How might we design for flexibility, responsiveness, and growth without becoming chaotic or incoherent? What if we let something new emerge without forcing it into pre-existing boxes? Where should we include structure needed for safety, and where can we leave room for surprise?
