The Regenerative Lens

Society-wide transformations are a given of life on earth. For better or for worse, the way we live, think and co-create is constantly, and sometimes rapidly changing. Often these changes are the consequences of big life-altering events like changing climates. Other times they arise from movements of people who drive societal-wide deep change. Today, we are experiencing both at the same time. Human-driven climate change and biodiversity loss are rapidly changing the ecosystems we are connected to and dependent on. Simultaneously, growing numbers of people around the globe have started realizing that the way we live is fundamentally skewed and that we have to rapidly alter the way we see and live on this beautiful earth.

Radically changing your worldview is not an easy, and in most cases a lifelong effort. To succeed on individual, business, governmental and systemic levels we need each other and a wide range of new co-created, understandable & actionable lenses, frameworks, narratives, stories, beliefs and traditions.

In this article we explore one of these relatively new Frameworks, namely; The Regenerative Lens: A conceptual framework for regenerative social-ecological systems (One Earth (2023)

Before we start I want to acknowledge the mechanistic worldview has resulted in a deeply engrained but limiting trust in frameworks. We value consistency and academia over our intuition and interpersonal relationships. I believe to Shift Horizons we will need some of the old paradigm ways such as frameworks to make the navigation of the regenerative lens accessible. I see frameworks as a medium of change whilst being aware that capturing the regenerative lens in a set framework diminishes both her complexity and our shared transformative journey of rediscovering our interbeing and entanglement.

The Regenerative Lens

The researchers identified five key qualities, supported by methods, dynamics and practices, which guide the realization of regenerative transformations and outcomes. I can’t wait to dive deep into all the supporting practices and methods which can help you and your business to truly understand and embody the regenerative lens. But first, let’s explore the framework as a whole.

The research team suitably visualized the five key qualities in a framework shaped like a human eye. Because at its core, we as humans need to deeply understand that we are part of a complex web of life and that we are in no way separate from other living beings and forms of life.

“Our framework emphasizes that to be regenerative, a system — e.g., a person, family, community, or organization — cannot be regenerative on its own but only as part of a regenerative ‘‘ensemble’’ of interdependent social-ecological systems that are mutually supporting each other. To foster these dynamics and therefore the wellbeing and continued evolution of human societies and wider nature, a regenerative system would need the individual and mutually reinforcing contributions of five essential qualities: an embodied ecological worldview, mutualistic interactions, high diversity, agency, and reflexivity.”

Ecological worldview

At the core of the Regenerative lens sits the Ecological Worldview. Only once we as humans once again truly understand the interconnectedness and essence of life on earth, will we be able to shed our destructive ideas, beliefs and behaviors. Until that moment, every attempt to move forward remains blocked by the limitations of our own ego-centric world.

"Embracing the ecological worldview means deeply embodying and understanding that they are a part of the web of life and existence." - One Earth 2023

Supporting dynamics and practices.

• System mapping
• Circular economy
• Agro-ecology
• Learning from indigenous philosophies…

Reflexivity

"Reflexivity is a deeper form of reflection that continually re-evaluates the values and assumptions underpinning our actions. Although it includes continued and iterative experimentation, evaluation, learning, and adaptation of more post hoc, reflective forms of reflexivity here we consider it to go further, additionally encompassing collaborative exploration of desired regenerative futures and also an active, present-moment awareness of the many dimensions of participation in regenerative systems

Continued evaluation (including of values and assumptions), experimentation, learning and adaptation, collaborative exploration of desired futures’ mindfulness of all regenerative qualities."

Supporting dynamics and practices.

• Adaptive management
• Future methods
• Reflexive evaluation
• Developmental evaluation….

Mutualism

“*Preponderance of positive relationships in the system, and a high proportion of interactions (amongst people and between people and wider nature) that benefit all parties.

Mutualistic interactions require care for others as well as care to meet one’s own needs. Encouraging mutualism therefore means encouraging care." One Earth 2023

*For the non-native English speakers or non-academics among us. Preponderance is the quality or fact of being greater in number, quantity, or importance.

Supporting dynamics and practices.

• Cooperation
• Reciprocity
• Caring
• Reconnection with local/nature/heritage/food production
• Experiential learning
• Resource-sharing
• Commoning….

Agency

"People and wider nature have the freedom and resources to act regeneratively.

Supporting dynamics and practices:

• Ground-up organisation/emergence
• Self-organisation,
• Participatory/co-creative decision-making
• Cooperative ownership
• Commoning
• Unionisation
• Holocracies
• Sociacracies …"

Diversity

Life, society, creativity, food and arts all thrive by diversity. The best way to kill the magic of life and make way for nothingness is by choosing the mono path of sameness. Through the regenerative lens, we are constantly seeking to enhance diversity. "For a high variety of systems components (physical and conceptual): biodiversity, agrobiodiversity, cultural diversity, biocultural diversity…

Humanity has attempted to make the Earth a monotonous human-centred place. A planet where the human worldview is the only truth. But we are slowly seeing and accepting that, what many indigenous communities have always known, we are living on a multi-world Earth. Where, the natural, spiritual, human, and perhaps some worlds that we don't even know of (yet), coexist simultaneously and interconnected. It's therefore vital that we allow space for a variety of worldviews and perspectives.

"A Pluriversal Planet enfolds myriad ways of being, seeing, sensing and knowing. It rejects the "universal" to embrace the many cosmologies and ontologies of the diversity of life. A Pluriverse is a world where many worlds fit." Sahana Chattopadhyay

Supporting dynamics and practices:

• Resilience
• Creativity
• Innovation
• Transdisciplinarity
• Celebrating local pluralism,
• Multi-cropping, crop rotation, silvopasture…

The future of life on earth depends on the ability of humans to shift horizons and deeply adopt and embody the regenerative lens. Just thinking about new worldviews isn't enough, we need to get up, get out, explore, connect, unlearn, entangle, play, feel, and rewild.

The Regenerative lens is formed in the buzzing, living, symbiotic dynamics between all life on Earth, the question is, how do we, humans, find our way back into this dynamic?

Shifting Horizons exists to explore ways we can individually and collectively trasition in our worldview and realize regenerative transformations.

What Regenerative Practices are sparking your curiosity? Share your thoughts and wonders in the comments.

The Regenerative Lens: A conceptual framework for regenerative social-ecological systems - One Earth 2023 - Sam J. Buckton, Ioan Fazey, Bill Sharpe, Eugyen Suzanne Om, Bob Doherty, Peter Ball, Katherine Denby, Maria Bryant, Rebecca Lait, Sarah Bridle, Michelle Cain, Esther Carmen, Lisa Collins, Nicola Nixon, Christopher Yap, Annie Connolly, Ben Fletcher, Angelina Frankowska, Grace Gardner, Anthonia James, Ian Kendrick, Alana Kluczkovski, Simon Mair, Belinda Morris, Maddie Sinclair,

Why We Resonate with Regenerative - You are Unstitution.