“What if nature held the board seat instead of me?” - Nadja Skaljic
Regeneration invites us to centre harmony where extraction has been the norm. From community managed gardens to boardrooms where people turn into guardians of nature, regeneration compels us to see humans not as separate from nature, but as part of the living we of life on Earth.
“Regeneration means changing the DNA of all of our systemic structures (the human-made ones). Before we are human beings, we are life. When we die, we’ll literally give back to the earth, the air, the water, and it was their way before humanity was even created. We’re a product, an iteration of one of the natural expressions of the universe” - Alexandra Pimor
“In the indigenous Igorot community where I was raised, regeneration is a holistic process — physical renewal of our lands, but also the revitalization of our cultural, spiritual, and social practices. We are taught that every action we take shapes the world around us.” - Myra Colis, Cycles of Hope
Regeneration calls for unlearning harmful systems and recentring traditional practices that honour place, soil, story and community. It calls for re-learning traditional knowledge and un-learning colonial mindsets.
This includes rethinking societal values, business models, and ecological practices to align with natural laws and the ‘essence of life’. Regeneration beckons holistic transformation that involves creativity, imagination, and a shift in how people relate to each other and the environment. It is not just about ecosystems — it's about reimagining our social, political and economic structures. Regeneration invites radical creativity: bioregional governance, community-led economies, legal personhood for rivers.
Regeneration seeks to actively improve and restore ecosystems, communities, and human systems rather than merely maintaining the status quo i.e. to leave systems better than they were found.
There is a genuine apprehension that regeneration may be diluted, vague, overused - a term used to greenwash and continue business as usual, with no real systems change behind it when regeneration is treated as nothing more than a marketing tool for branding as green, its potential for deep systemic change is diluted.
"Regen-washing (and all alternatives to regenerative) is underway in many endeavours. Unseen and unintended." Graham Boyd, Exploratory Calls
There are concerns about the exploitation of ancestral, local, and/or Indigenous knowledge and practices. Regenerative practices and approaches are at the heart of ancestral and indigenous wisdom, and yet often this wisdom is extracted, repackaged, and sold with little to no credit, consent or leadership roles given to the knowledge keepers.
“To me, regeneration means returning to that path - recognising how much our ancestors knew about living in harmony with the rest of the natural world. And not just reconnecting - but centring those knowledge systems. It’s not enough to simply revisit them; these communities should be leading the reflections.” Rokhaya Diallo, Insight Piece
Given the rising popularity of the term, many fear that the term "regeneration" may be used superficially to secure funding for projects that are not genuinely regenerative. This would lead to a gap between words and action.
There are also concerns that people, especially in business and political spheres, misunderstand what true regeneration involves - leading to surface-level changes rather than addressing the root causes of environmental and social issues.
The commercialisation of natural resources also emerged as a real concern, especially when plants, lands or medicines, like ayahuasca, are turned into commodities without respect for their cultural significance. This is not regenerative. It is extraction for profit, not true socio-ecological restoration.
Our year-long inquiry into the concept of regeneration also surfaced “tensions” - not barriers that need instant fixing, but paradoxes that shape how regenerative practices are executed. These tensions are not new; they echo the polarities and dilemmas that many in the systems thinking field continue to grapple with today. Polarities can be generative when acknowledged. Many innovations arise not by resolving a polarity, but by living with it. It is often in the space between opposites that new patterns, practices, and possibilities emerge.
Tensions remind us that regeneration is not always a linear process but a living practice of navigating contradictions. Here are eight of these tensions that we are focusing on.
Relationality: Honour interdependence - human and more-than-human kinship.
Plurality: Hold diverse ways of knowing. Resist linear approaches.
Justice: Root regeneration in equity and decolonisation.
Openness over control: Value emergence as a natural part of the process
Care over extraction: Design that nourishes, not depletes.
To sum up, what we have learnt is that regeneration is not something we just sustain, it is what we remember, embody and practice daily for life to flourish.
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?
