This gathering of companies kicked off with three main objectives: to deepen trust between the participating companies, facilitate mutual learning, and identify collaborative projects, including opportunities for research. From the outset, participants have articulated a need to transcend more traditional approaches to corporate sustainability, underscoring interest in transforming incumbent environmental, social, and economic systems through business. Key priorities across the group include leveraging diverse sectoral strengths, enhancing pathways for collaborative action, and identifying onramps for other companies to come alongside their work. Participating companies have articulated a desire not to “go it alone”, acknowledging that the innovations they have built will have a greater impact if they collaborate. The interplay between commercial outcomes and systems-level goals has emerged front and centre in the firms’ conversations, as has the theme of the power of entrenched industry norms. The need for creative thinking and mutual support to amplify their impact has been clear, as is the appetite for a platform for businesses like theirs to work together to take even more effective action on systems-level goals.
WHAT DO WE MEAN BY ‘REGENERATION’?
The term ‘regeneration’ has multiple meanings. Three key elements that animate this work:
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Creating positive impact for people, communities and planet (Das & Bocken, 2024) 2
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Not just ‘sustaining the status quo’ - actively engaging in the creation of positive impact in their own business and at a systems level (Konietzko, 2020) 3
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While the idea of regeneration typically describes agricultural practices… when extended to business, the goal of regeneration “is to make systems better, to give back more than is taken, to replenish the planet’s natural resources, and to render communities and society more equitable (Marquis, 2024) ” 4
Ankita Das and Bocken, N. (2024) Regenerative business strategies: A database and typology to inspire business experimentation towards sustainability, Sustainable Production and Consumption, 49, pp 529-544, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2024.06.024 2 Konietzko, Jan, et al. “A Tool to Analyze, Ideate and Develop Circular Innovation Ecosystems.” Sustainability, vol. 12, no. 1, 5 Jan. 2020, p. 417, https://doi.org/10.3390/su12010417 3 Marquis, Christopher. “How Regeneration Is Redefining Business.” Stanford Social Innovation Review, 2024, ssir.org/articles/entry/regenerative-business-models 4
BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY
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