From Goals to Beginnings: Embracing Regenerative Transformations

There has been some discussion lately about the Inner Development Goals (IDGs), and how they relate to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and perhaps offer new solutions —are they too vague, too rigid, or simply not enough? Rather than diving into the questions of authorship or collaboration that have emerged, I would rather have a go at exploring the how a regenerative perspective illuminates both the promise and the limitations of the IDGs and SDGs.

Regeneration: Moving Beyond Goals

At its core, regeneration is about going beyond symptoms to the systemic roots of our challenges. For decades, global collaborations have focused on setting ambitious goals—first through the MDGs, then the SDGs. While effective at uniting leaders and nations, these frameworks often sidestep the deeper causes of the crises they aim to solve.

Consider the symptoms we face: rising CO2 emissions, polluted water sources, and dying ecosystems. Beneath these lie systemic behaviors—overconsumption, industrialized farming, relentless urban expansion—all driven by unsustainable human systems. Tackling these requires not just mitigating impacts but rethinking the foundations of how we interact with the planet and one another.

This is where regenerative transformation comes in: creating beginnings. While sustainability frameworks like the SDGs focus on maintaining balance, or even on the impact of our actions and how we might reduce them to "zero" or even "beyond zero", regeneration has a different aim: seeking to regrow our systems and the way they inhabit the world, in ways that are mutually enriching and life-giving.

As Hannah Arendt wrote in 1967, the heart of any revolution contains the hope of an essential freedom:

“That the idea of freedom and the actual experience of making a new beginning in the historical continuum should coincide. (…) We can start something because we are beginnings and thus beginners.”

Although Arendt did not directly address regeneration, her words point to a fundamental truth of the regenerative: its revolutionary potential to create processes that promote freedom. The core of regeneration is not the limitation of harnessing of our actions, but the opening up of pathways towards creating life-giving processes from the root causes and onward.

The Role of Human Systems

Regenerative efforts must focus on human actions, cultures, and systems, as these are the drivers of ecological degradation. This addresses the caveat of the IDGs: if they are viewed as abstract generalizations, they could succeed, yet lead to the strengthening of organizations, whose actions are harmful, extractive practices, under the guise of innovation. So the problem is not to link the IDGs to our unsustainable impact on the world, but in the limitation of chaining human development to certain goals. With all respect, the SDGs expressed a certain political climate and what was achievable in 2015. Today, much has changed, and the processes we start need to go deeper. We must head into fundamental changes in how humans interact—with each other, with ecosystems, and with the materials we consume.

This process involves nonlinear, often unpredictable shifts. The aim isn’t to achieve measurable outcomes immediately but to ignite qualitative transformations—shifts in awareness and consciousness that mirror wider systemic change. These transformations can unlock exponential benefits far beyond what traditional goal-setting approaches can predict - without falling into neither the inner-outer structural trap - nor the myth of "a handful of devoted individuals" being at the heart of societal transformations.

The Promise and Limits of the IDGs

The IDGs represent a thoughtful and relevant response to a missing piece in the SDG framework: the cultural root of the transformation needed to catalyze systemic change. The SDGs excel at setting measurable targets but often neglect the processes and mindsets necessary to achieve them. Enter the IDGs, which focus on inner qualities like collaboration, creativity, and relationality.

However, the IDGs are often criticized for their vagueness or lack of measurable indicators. This criticism misses the point: the IDGs are not about targets but about qualities of being that underlie effective action. Trying to quantify these aspects risks suffocating their transformative potential. Instead, they must be understood as tools for fostering the conditions for regenerative change.

The question is: what happens if we release the IDGs from being only about achieving the SDGs? First of all, they are released from the misleading simplification of the inner and the outer - which as pointed out by Nora Bateson in her Symmathesy text years ago, erases entanglement and insinuates the possibility of designing a process of change "from inner to outer". Second, we get a new question: what is at the heart of the tool-like approach to transformation expressed in IDG flower? Could it be a the loss of a human core that was the result of the massive victory of the industrial, modern world-view?

That "loss of soul" derives us of our understanding of what links us to other living beings, to matter, to societies, and to our own cultures. Might the integration of the IDGs under the vision of regeneration point us in the direction of that lost spirituality?

Both the SDGs and IDGs have blind spots. The SDGs lean too heavily on external goals and measurable impacts, while the IDGs emphasize tools and inner processes without fully addressing systemic transformation. A regenerative perspective bridges this gap by targeting the roots of human and ecological systems simultaneously.

Regeneration invites us to intervene at the source of our challenges: the intersection of human behavior and ecological systems. It asks us to create conditions for flourishing, not just survival. By integrating regeneration with the SDG and IDG frameworks, we can move beyond treating symptoms to addressing root causes.

A Call to Begin

Ultimately, regeneration is about beginnings, not constraints. It aligns with sustainable practices like deep ecology and permaculture but goes further, seeking to rebuild the vitality of our systems at every level. It asks us to act from a place of understanding, where our interventions in human and natural systems are life-enhancing rather than extractive.

The work of regeneration happens in acting communities that breathe life into society, ecosystems, and economies. It’s a journey of aligning human and natural systems to achieve the greatest regenerative effect across all domains—environmental, societal, and personal. This is not about "fixing" the SDGs or IDGs; it’s about embracing the transformative potential at their core.

By focusing on roots rather than branches, regeneration allows us to address the metacrisis of our time: the fragmentation of human and ecological systems. It reminds us that the ultimate transformation is not merely sustainable but regenerative—a return to beginnings that opens the door to a flourishing future.