The current economic model has already proven to be unsustainable, causing the degradation of the ecosystem and society. The sustainability paradigm came as an alternative, but today we need to go further. Regeneration has become indispensable. Regeneration of our relationships, be they between people, communities or nature.
A company’s ESG practices can (and should) be a way of contributing to a more regenerative, conscious and integral world.
Why regenerate?
According to Otto Scharmer, our world today has three main disconnections:
Ecological disconnection
We are depleting the available natural resources that are essential for our survival. We are currently leaving an ecological footprint 1.75x greater than the planet’s capacity, i.e. we are using 75% more resources than nature can regenerate. As a consequence, we are seeing agricultural land disappear and water tables rapidly fall. Food prices are expected to double by 2030.
Social disconnection
According to the World Inequality Report, the poorest half of the global population barely owns any wealth at all, possessing just 2% of the total. In contrast, the richest 10% of the global population own 76% of all wealth.
Spiritual-Cultural disconnection
While the Ecological Breakdown is a disconnection between self and nature, and the Social Breakdown is a separation between self and other, the Spiritual-Cultural Breakdown is a division between self and self. This division is reflected in the growing numbers of mental health diagnoses. According to the WHO, depression will be the most common illness in the world by 2030.
The bottom line
Today, employees and leaders of organizations are not prepared to deal with the highly complex problems that arise from these conflicts. Since they involve different origins and different agents with different objectives.
The conflicts we see today in all of society’s systems – political, financial, social, environmental, etc – are interconnected and influence each other.
If there isn’t a paradigm shift in the logic in which we operate, the situation will continue to get worse. We are acting in the same way and expecting different results, without changing our behavior.
Hence the need for regenerative thinking, where each individual needs to change in order for the transformation to be systemic.
What is regeneration?
Regeneration is the restoration of ecological and social systems to a state of health, creating the necessary vital conditions that allow these systems to thrive in a resilient and adaptive way.
When we talk about regeneration we are referring to a practice that has already been established by life itself and by evolution over billions of years, in other words, to understand regeneration we need to understand the principles of life itself.
Logic of Life
Segundo Giles Hutchins e Laura Storm, no seu livro Regenerative Leadership, a vida actua de acordo com determinados princípios:
- Life is in Favor of Life
Life creates the right conditions for more life to thrive, it is circular, meaning there is no waste. When an apple falls from a tree, it doesn’t create toxic waste, but food for microbes, bacteria and fungi, birds and worms, as well as having seeds for new life at its core. - Constant Change and Adaptation
Living systems are constantly creating or recreating themselves, transforming or replacing their elements according to the demands of the environment. - Interconnection and Interdependence
Life thrives on relationships. Everything in life consists of interrelated and interconnected systems. Understanding these interconnections frees our perception from seeing and thinking in parts and, instead, we begin to think in systems. - Diversity
Diversity is essential for increasing the vitality and resilience of a population. Relationships formed by difference, even if seemingly opposed, can create new opportunities, systems and life. - Cycles and Rhythms
Everything in life is cyclical and rhythmic, undergoing a constant process of innovation, expansion, withdrawal and regeneration. - Flows of energy and matter
A living organism is a system that needs to constantly exchange energy and matter with its environment in order to stay alive. Life depends on the constant flow of oxygen, water, biomass, minerals and nutrients.
Regenerative Leadership
A regenerative leadership is one that applies the logic of life and promotes it in its actions.
Attributes
Regenerative leadership works in harmony between being and doing. Its main characteristics include.
Thinking: systemic, long-term and integral. Following the logic of nature, uniting the material, spiritual, rational and intuitive. No need for control, respects flow, peace of mind and joy in being. Focus on compassion, empathy, well-being and sharing.
Behavior: focused on the common good, altruism, service, flexibility and innovation. Attitudes based on reflection, resilience and empowerment. Acting according to values, connections and focused on abundance.
Relationships: A culture that values interconnection, collaboration, justice, diversity, inclusion, fairness, trust and unity.
Systems: Networking, sustainability practices, circular economy, fair and egalitarian societies, ethical, accountable and transparent organizations.
How to work for Regeneration
Regeneration can seem challenging, going against many established principles and practices. However, there are steps we can take to begin our journey in this direction.
- Start with yourself
Be open to self-knowledge. Understand that consciousness is a continuous process of learning and growth, and that there is always room to evolve, as living systems we are always in transformation.
Know that this path is not a lonely one. Seeking out and exchanging experiences with people who are on the same path to regeneration is essential.
Learn from each situation to reformulate your way of thinking/acting, feeling and responding to life. - Start from where you are and with what you have in your hands
Be open and humble enough to understand that your vision of the world is unique and personal. Understand that your actions should be halfway between passivity and arrogance, not at either extreme.
Regenerative leadership can be applied wherever you are; its principles should be applied in spaces beyond the corporate world, such as your home and your community. - Stay informed
Keep your mind open and flexible, being able to adapt to new ideas and perspectives. This is because we need to reformulate results-oriented approaches into inquiry-oriented ones, asking “What is possible here?” and “What is really needed?”.
To do this, it is essential to practice active listening, paying attention to the needs, feelings and perspectives of others and seeking to understand their worldviews. - Become aware of our interdependence
As we saw above, nature operates on the basis of interdependence and interconnection.
For us, it’s no different: we need to recognize the interdependence between all the members of our teams, working to build healthy and productive relationships with colleagues.
It’s important to note that each aspect we’ve listed brings actions and generates systemic action, reverberating throughout the whole. - Analyze your organization’s leadership and reward structures
Check whether your organization gives “space” for your subordinates, peers, leaders or work groups to disagree with your position, allowing them to present their arguments without taking conflicts of ideas personally.
An essential aspect of regenerative development is trust, which replaces fear in relationships.
There must be incentives for employees to act transparently, expressing their opinions respectfully and carefully in order to value the journey and the intrinsic learning of emerging, experimental and evolutionary approaches. - Believe in the evolution of people and organizations
Promote a sense of purpose and meaning in the work you do, aligning your actions with your personal and professional values. Be an agent of transformation who reverberates these actions throughout the team.
The ESG and Regeneration
A regenerative ESG approach makes leaders and organizations agents in favor of life, after all, they follow its principles.
This means going beyond traditional sustainability, as their actions are not just aimed at reducing the impact caused. In fact, it’s a shift to a new way of doing business.
It’s about re-evaluating and re-constructing the relationship between self and nature, restoring ecological and social systems to a state of health, creating the vital necessary conditions that allow these systems to thrive.
A regenerative journey is therefore a journey of reconnection. At We.Flow, we summarize this transition in the following graphic scheme, in which it is possible to understand that important ESG movements such as the SDGs and the B-Company movement are methodologies that contribute to this process.
From the inside out
All our work is based on the principle that all of us, human beings, and consequently everything we create, can co-exist in an interdependent way, for our collective evolution.
An evolutionary process that continually emerges from the inside out.
From within oneself to the collective, from within the collective to the organization, from within the organization to society, and so on. In other words, the regenerative paradigm begins with the Self, evolves to the We and finally connects with the Whole, as illustrated in the figure.
It’s about learning to become more human while focusing on the day-to-day reality of a profitable and lively business.
Regenerative businesses enrich life. They enrich ourselves, our customers and the ecosystem of stakeholders.
This is a radical change in the perception of business, as it is no longer a means of acquiring power, control and wealth, but is dedicated to building resources and initiatives that preserve life.
Benefits
With regenerative logic come new opportunities:
- stakeholders become partners with whom you can engage through authentic communications and reciprocal relationships;
- linear thinking is replaced by systemic and circular thinking;
- resources are not managed for short-term gain, but perceived to their full potential;
- exploitation gives way to an ethical relationship with all life;
- different needs, perspectives, visions and emotions are not avoided, as they can generate new opportunities.
Regeneration Applications
There are now various concepts and ways of applying regeneration to business development. These include:
Circular Economy
Focus on the design of products and systems for the reuse of materials. In this way we can eliminate the concept of waste with a product-to-product trajectory, preserving and transmitting its value. Therefore, with this new thinking we can develop a new social and economic organization, generating jobs and strengthening the economy locally.
Biomimetics
It is the science that studies natural processes in order to apply them to different areas, using them as a source of inspiration to generate innovation. As nature follows the logic of life, its solutions are usually regenerative and beneficial to the ecosystem.
Permaculture
Socio-environmental science of planning self-sustaining human settlements, which evolve naturally in dynamic and renewable relationships with the surrounding environment. The principles of permaculture are: care for the earth, care for people and care for the future.
“If we truly live by the fact that we are life, that we are nature and that we have a bond of interdependence with the life that surrounds us, we will come to consider the creation of a civilization that is globally regenerative and expressed in a diversity that is locally adapted to the challenge of our times.” Daniel Christian Wahl
Discover our ESG Consulting and Regenerative Leadership services.
