Want to be regenerative? Mind the Gap and watch out for Elephants!

SUMMARY

This post may be too long for some readers, so here's the summary.

While the term "regenerative tourism" has attracted considerable attention in recent months, it now seems that the hospitality sector is interested too - see the?article ?from EHL introducing their relationship with Regenerativetravel.com and the shift being made by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance towards a Net Positive?pathway. ?The focus continues to be on actions that aim to move beyond "doing less harm" (a phase Carol Sanford describes as Arresting Disorder) to "doing more good."?

Much airtime and column inches are being spent discussing the differences between sustainable and regenerative as an either-or exercise, as if one were right and the other wrong. While there is evidence to suggest that 40 years of sustainable thinking and practice are proving insufficient to prevent ecological collapse, in no way are we suggesting they be discontinued or judged negatively. Without them we would be in a worse state. Those who have worked so hard to demonstrate, teach and share them are to be applauded. But grabbing regeneration as the next hot solution and then over-simplifying it for whatever reasons could do even more harm by postponing the transformative change needed to set humanity on a healthier course.

Note: The focus of this paper??is on those societies of European origin (aka the western world [i] ) whose wealth and power has been based on their own industrial efforts combined with the extraction of resources (people, land, cultures) from around the globe. For the majority of people on the planet, and especially indigenous peoples, their worldview and way of life is regenerative by design and practice. My purpose here (as illustrated in the map below) is to show the nature of our journey in the west and how all stages are necessary as we mature and evolve as a sub segment of the human species. Sustainable and regenerative practices fit on a never-ending pathway from being a social- economy designed primarily to?extract value?to one that not only?generates value?but also?builds the capability for value to grow and evolve over time.

The actions taken within the triangle shaded pink all take the form of solutions to one or more problems or issues that, in most cases, are perceived as separate, and treated differently involving various subject disciplines, methods and experts. They share a common approach:??define a problem, analyse its impact (i.e in terms of human welfare), develop and test various solutions, measure and evaluate results, and then determine whether the solutions should be revised, escalated or discarded.??They also share a common understanding of how the world works that has been developed over a 300-350 year period since the emergence of science as both a method and accumulated source of knowledge.?

Here's the real challenge we face in 2023. The very science western civilisation has come to trust and rely on is now demonstrating that 40 years of earnest sustainable activity hasn't made planet earth and life healthier or safer.??Furthermore, the same science is upending the assumptions it developed to underpin the industrial model and perspective that's now being questioned!!!?

We are being asked to make more radical, transformative changes that require us not just to act differently but to perceive and think differently - i.e., to radically re-appraise what it means to be a human being and live in harmony with the rest of life. The very method we have traditionally used both to develop opportunities and fix problems is now proving to be the source of our current predicament.

After 300 years of reducing our understanding of our world to ever smaller parts, western society is now buried under growing mountain of fragmented information, ever more specialised expertise, comments, analyses, toolkits, certifications, newscasts, and opinions of every kind that prevent us from seeing or enable us to avoid seeing the big picture or discerning fact from fiction.??The end result - our attention span is shrinking to less than that of a goldfish.?[1]

That's the reason why the crude map above shows there is a huge gap separating the extraction phase from the regenerative phase. If we stick with the journey metaphor then that gap could represent either a chasm or a mountain peak - in short, a big obstacle that must be overcome if we are to develop systems that are truly regenerative.

We are torn between two worlds: the world of new leadership challenges on the one hand, and the world of old management tools on the other. Between these two lies a yawning abyss.?Otto Scharmer

The?curved yellow arrow beneath the words Mindset Shift is borrowed from Otto Scharmer's great work summarised as Theory U. He and other established proponents of regenerative thinking all understand just how important it is to unlearn an obsolete perspective and set of assumptions and beliefs that inhibit life's flourishing and replace them with a new understanding capable of creating the social, cultural, mental, financial and physical conditions for life in all its forms to thrive. This part of the journey takes time and involves a letting go and a letting come; a descent and ascent; an opening of the mind, heart and will as illustrated below (Source Kelvey Bird, Theory U) .

Unfortunately, while playing some lip service to mindset shifts, most of the recent articles about regenerative hospitality, especially in the popular press, dodge recognizing the magnitude and nature of this gap.??I think that's because our ingrained patterns of thought and perception simply render the gap invisible. (Those who live inside a dominant paradigm are rarely aware of its nature). Alternatively, they appear to assume that we can simply propel ourselves onto the next peak (on the right) based on the momentum and "progress" associated with getting to the top of left peak. By this analogy I am referring to the current tendency to cherry pick attractive ideas associated with regenerative thinking (e.g., being nature-based, generating positive impact, engaging communities) and avoiding the really hard work of facing and dealing with the obstacles associated with getting to the other side.?

Regenerative approaches (perspective and process) involve several distinguishing features (hallmarks) and will be discussed individually in subsequent posts. In the meantime, three obstacles, equivalent to 3 elephants are blocking the pathway:

·???????the need for a radical paradigm shift (change in perspective); that leads to?

·???????a re-definition of purpose and growth and that requires:?

·???????an appreciation of our colonial history and the need for the western world to acknowledge its privileged position.

1. Paradigm-Perspective

"If you follow the rivers of these crises upstream, you meet a crisis of consciousness, a crisis of perception. A crisis of how we see ourselves and our role in this living planet.”?Fritjof Capra

The biggest difference between regenerative and sustainable processes and practices stems from the fact that each is shaped by a fundamentally different paradigm. The Old Story, often referred to as the mechanistic, industrial paradigm, is based on a perception that we exist within a lifeless universe comprising dead matter and empty space - a cosmos that has no apparent purpose. The New Story sees the universe as alive at its foundations and the cosmos as a purposeful learning system with every seeming "thing" pulsating energy, utterly inter-connected and entangled with everything else.??

The Old Story made sense of its world by defining and focusing on its component parts perceived as separate, replaceable, and fixable. At its core is the Story of Separation that's?

... essentially the story of separation between humans and nature, between humans and other humans, and the separation of our own inner psychology to value only the extrinsic rather than our own inner and outer possibilities in the world.?Jenny Andersson

Close on the tails of that story is the belief that humans are intrinsically selfish (see Tim Jackson's?Beyond Capitalism) and the resources we need to thrive are material and scarce (see Jason Hickel's article?Degrowth: A Radical Theory of Abundance)?and you have the rationale for competition.

Kate Raworth's observation show how these beliefs combine to shape a certain kind of economy:?

"Ask a mainstream economics professor to draw the economy, you'll probably end up with a circular flow between households and businesses, with loops through government, trade and finance. All those flows just float on a white background.?There is no living world, no care work, and no commons. The economy is abstracted from the rest of the world...Herman Daly, a founding father of ecological economics drew the economy as a subset of the living world and everything that comes in and out must be compatible with conditions conducive to life on this planet. Economics should start with ecology and the planet's key cycles and all the planetary boundaries we cannot overshot."

Discussions about changes to the prevailing economic system - be they about growth and purpose - only have power, meaning and effect when we replace our mechanical linear frames for living systems and when we understand and emulate the processes Nature has developed to thrive and evolve.?The truth is??-our current worldview is what's destroying life on this planet and left unchecked will take down our civilisation.?Regeneration is based on a life affirming perspective of humans as part of nature contributing not taking, genuinely respecting and caring not just doing good; and healing not harming the life force that has brought us forward over 3.8 billion years. Only when we have learned to see ourselves as individuals, communities and countries as part of a dynamic living system subject to nature's laws will we truly figure out how to thrive.?

But we're impatient in tourism. The very nature of our business requires us to focus on the immediate, to formulate simple phrases and by-lines along with targets that can be easily communicated, assimilated and measured. There's no doubt that first identifying, then dismantling an obsolete but daily used set of beliefs will take time, considerable letting go, and be painful at times. But there can be no transformation, no metamorphosis without - just ask a caterpillar! Articles on "regenerative tourism" that only focus on novel solutions such as community-based, carbon negative, nature-positive etc. and avoid the work necessary to re-design an entire economy and society based on life's complexity, may produce a feel-good emotion but distract us from the real work.?

2.??The Need to re-define Growth?

Mainstream tourism is extractive in nature and currently based on an industrial model that depends on the expansion of both demand (consumption as in trips), spending and supply (the infrastructure necessary to house, feed and transport those trips). This dependency shapes individual and collective purpose that maps over to our measure of personal, corporate and national success: achieving more net worth, more profit and more GDP.?

It's a model that's ultimately unsustainable because all the efforts made to shrink the sector's footprint have not kept pace with its aggregate growth in the past and are unlikely to do so in the future.?

"With global tourism set to double in size by 2050 from 2019 levels, current strategies that rely solely on carbon offsetting, technological efficiencies and biofuels are woefully inadequate"?Travel Foundation in?Envisioning Tourism in 2030."

According to The Travel Foundation, the only decarbonisation scenario that could match current growth forecasts would require € multimillion investments and capping international flights to 2019 levels. Figure 2 from the report (see below) below just shows the huge scale of the gap between projected and required emissions over the next 30 years.?

While the approach euphemistically called "green growth" has been embraced by those unwilling to think out of the business-as-usual box, The recent report:?Decoupling Debunked ?is one of many showing there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of a decoupling anywhere near the scale needed to prevent environmental collapse.??For example, contrary to the hopes and PR buzz of the aviation industry,?recent research ?shows that sufficient production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) is not just unlikely but could?"undermine?global goals of limiting warming to 1.5 °C; a conflict that is neither recognised in the roadmaps nor in the public debate."?

?A tendency to resist making this the growth elephant visible and subject to serious investigation could turn out to be the sector's biggest error given that the topic of degrowth and postgrowth is now capturing serious attention politically. The chorus of voices suggesting that the nature of the prevailing economic system might be at fault is growing louder by the day.??As I was writing this, the European Parliament is concluding an intensive, 3-day conversation on the topic "Beyond Growth 2023"?that is being fully livestreamed (see?here ?for access to recordings). Just five years ago, this topic was virtually taboo, now more politicians, bureaucrats and academics appear willing to think what was recently unthinkable.??They are even willing to open up the vast hall of the European Parliament for discussion of such a contentious topic.?

Complementing the act of questioning growth is the attention being paid to socio-economic purpose and the definition of success. See?this paper ?prepared by the EU Wellbeing Economy Coalition:?

"The well-being economy we want is focused on meeting the fundamental needs and rights of all, providing a safe and just space in which everyone can thrive, within planetary boundaries. It delivers purpose, dignity and fairness in a participatory way."?

The?Welbeing Economy Alliance ?(WEALL) has six governments as partners (Scotland, New Zealand, Iceland, Wales, Finland and Canada) investing time, money and energy in looking at the nature of policy changes needed to pursue well-being for all.?

Regardless of your personal opinion as to the growth question, it is clear to me that the context in which business operate and destinations are managed is changing fast. Having the word "prosperity" as an objective is taking on far more diverse, nuanced and richer meanings. It will no longer be accepted as a nicer word for profit. If wellbeing, thriving, and flourishing for all do become our shared objective, the role of commerce and government will also change. Generating income, jobs, and contributing to GDP will not be enough. It's time to set this elephant in the centre of the room, ask serious questions of what it asks of us and get to work. The momentum for change is growing everyday.?

3. Privilege

The third elephant-obstacle, which has only recently started to poke its trunk into the thoughts and conversations of those of us raised in the affluent western world, is a reluctance to admit that the growth we enjoy is a result of several centuries of white supremacy, colonialism and globalisation / imperialism. The $10 trillion international tourism and hospitality industry has been both a key contributor to and net beneficiary of these forces.?

International travel is a privilege which, in global terms, only a few of us get to enjoy. According to?this source , only 4% of the 8.034 billion people alive today take international flights and just 1% account for more than half of the?total?emissions from passenger air travel.?

Privilege is enjoyed by people like me - European, white, middle class, well educated, affluent and free and we comprise the majority of travellers. Septuagenarians like me are also even more fortunate - we got to travel the world (albeit on a skimpy budget) when regions within countries differed in terms of culture, food, and language; when forests had not been denuded, wildlife populations decimated, and rivers rendered unsafe to bathe in.

People like me did not earn a right to travel but, based on the actions of our ancestors, we inherited the privilege and the opportunity, much of it accumulated during 300 years of colonial appropriation of land, resources and bodies from the South. Tourism still plays a key role in appropriating land suitable for tourism development, extracting income, appropriating culture while hiring locals to serve and amuse, and paying wages far lower than their own guests would deem acceptable.?

I am no way averse to visitors contributing to local projects when they are locally conceived and managed but often the "travel for good" mantra sustains an unquestioned assumption that the traveller knows what's good for the people and places visited and their philanthropy makes them superior to and separate from the host.???

From a regenerative perspective, degrowth is not necessarily about no growth - but growth in the things that matter; growth in fairness and justice that will lead to growth in diversity of opinions, growth in flourishing ecosystems, healthy cultures, tolerance and equity.??Growth occurs throughout nature. Life has been growing in complexity, beauty and order since it emerged 3.8 billion years ago - but always within its context. Life forms that grow at the expense of others and that damage the bigger system are either eliminated by the system or self-destruct. Nature seeks harmony and balance.?

The challenge ahead of us is huge, complex and very messy. We will have neither peace or prosperity until we have done what it takes to stall biodiversity loss; lower rising global temperatures; and re-design an economic system that enables all to thrive. That will not happen until the affluent few are willing to acknowledge the true source of our current wealth, reduce our consumption and assist those worst affected by the disastrous consequence of a continuously warming world. This does not mean the end of travel altogether but that the privileged few will fly less and make sure their spending generates maximum positive effect. The fact that we lack reliable data on leakage (ie the amount of visitor spending that benefits the host destination) is a point of shame. For tourism to become net positive, this is where we start!

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[1] ?https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/03/12/humans-have-shorter-attention-span-than-goldfish-thanks-to-smart/

[i] ?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_world