Regenerative systems, by design, give back more than they take, and foster resilience in the face of change. These design principles have been put into practice by indigenous cultures and land-based communities for centuries. Mirroring natural patterns, designing for whole-systems and ‘seventh generation’ thinking, these concepts have long been the cornerstone of many nature-grounded peoples’ symbiotic relationship with their environment.
The term Regenerative Design and Regenerative Development originated more recently, evolving alongside movements such as Permaculture and Agroecology, and are a preferable way to refer to the movement instead of the mainstream term Regenerative Agriculture, that often excludes the major role played by indigenous farmers, including those who were taken from their farms and enslaved, separated from their regenerative practices. These are the specialists who play a major role in developing, applying and sharing knowledge of regenerative design.
“Instead of doing less damage to the environment, it is necessary to learn how one can participate with the environment by using the health of ecological systems as a basis for design. The shift from a fragmented to a whole systems model is the significant cultural leap that consumer society needs to make – through framing and understanding living system inter-relationships in an integrated way.”
– bill reed, “moving from ‘sustainability’ to regeneration”
A key element of regenerative design is thinking in whole-systems.
In every community, each individual element relies on the others for health and support. Imagine a forest floor: tree roots, fungal networks, worms, millions of soil bacteria and other microorganisms — they all connect to create thriving soil and plant health, sharing nutrients and ‘information’ with one another.
Enabling healthy systems and ecosystems— social, cultural, ecological, economic. Regenerative design practitioners work to create and encourage healthy systems which create perpetual cycles of co-benefits, constantly strengthening the health of the overall system as well as each individual element. The co-benefits, inter-related and cascading, have an exponential potential to produce real change in the livelihoods and quality of life of those living in the region: empowering women and children, increasing income, ending malnutrition, increasing access to water, creating alternative livelihoods, improving health conditions and many others.