Regenerative is cropping up across many different areas these days — from education to economics to ecology to enterprise and more. With its roots in medicine and theology as early as the 14th and 15th centuries, the term came to be associated with forests in the late 19th century but not popularised until the 1970s & 80s with the work of Charles Krone, Bill Reed and others.
Since then, the term regenerative has found its way into many disciplines, from architectural design to medicine and technology to leadership design and community development to braking systems on hybrid automobiles. Although varied in its approach in different disciplines, this regenerative turn has helped to reinforce the reinvestment of energy, capital, and resources into building new systems that are more socially, economically, and ecologically resilient, and which begin to reintegrate separate systems toward the goal of a more authentically unified whole.
A few recent views of ‘regenerative’ below have been influential in the development of RLN’s approach. Please have a look!
We and all living beings thrive by being actors in the planet’s regeneration, a civilizational goal that should commence and never cease. We practiced degeneration as a species and it brought us to the threshold of an unimaginable crisis. To reverse global warming, we need to reverse global degeneration.
Paul Hawken, Regeneration
As the mess we’re in becomes more apparent each day, we must question the logic of simplistic solutions that do not attack the root problem.
Regenerative should mean embracing diverse processes and out-of-the-box thinking that connects healthy soils to vibrant human communities, making them inseparable. The time is now to dream and have confidence in new realities – and act boldly.
Nathan Einbinder, ‘Regenerative farming: Transforming the system or preserving the status quo?’ in Wicked Leeks
The creation of diverse, regenerative cultures collaboratively united in a regenerative civilization is the only viable future open to us as we move into the ‘planetary era’. Our collective challenge is to create cultures capable of continuous learning in the face of complexity, not-knowing and constant change. We have the creative opportunity to give birth to a human culture that is mature enough to express the insight that life creates conditions conducive to life in all its designs, systems and processes.
Daniel Christian Wahl, ‘Creating a regenerative culture.’
Regenerative Learning Network 