Forget Sustainability—Regeneration Is Now Urgently Needed

I am a member of the Planetary Health Alliance where a discussion recently occurred about whether to abandon the term “sustainability” and instead emphasize “regeneration.” Due to the implications for the natural environment and thus individual and collective mental health and wellbeing, I strongly endorsed regeneration.

For years I thought achieving sustainability was possible. To me this meant shifting to an economic system where material extraction, resource use and consumption, and waste generation occurred in ways that maintained the planet’s climate, ecosystems, and biological health, and thus the health, safety, and resiliency of society.

In the early 2000s, I interviewed innovative business leaders in different nations who were pursuing this approach. The methods they used to make this shift were described in my 2003 book, Leading Change Toward Sustainability: A Change Management Guide for Business, Government, and Civil Society.

A decade later, it became evident to me that little progress had been made in achieving true sustainability.

Now, despite significant increases in renewable energy and other positive steps, humans continue to profoundly denigrate the earth’s climate and ecological systems.

The largest 12-month increase in atmospheric carbon ever recorded occurred last year, and record levels of carbon were measured in the atmosphere. Rising temperatures are activating—and are activated by—accelerating degradation of ecological systems and loss of biodiversity, creating a global climate-ecosystem-biodiversity (C-E-B) crisis.

A recent poll of hundreds of top climate scientists found that almost 80 percent believed global temperatures will rise by a minimum of 4.5 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, which will devastate human civilization. Many also believe major societal disruptions will result within the next five years.

The current increase in temperatures is already damaging human health, safety, and well-being. Mental health and psychosocial problems are rising almost everywhere. They are creating significant personal, family, social, and economic costs affecting childhood and adolescent development, livelihoods, safety, education, health care, law enforcement, the criminal justice system, social services, and much more.

As temperatures heat up, far greater impacts will occur.

This is ironclad evidence that we have long passed the point where “sustainability” can be our goal. We cannot merely seek to maintain existing degraded environmental conditions. We must make far deeper transformational changes to regenerate the climate and ecological systems that support life on earth—including us—and greatly increase their health and resiliency.

What Does Regeneration Involve?

All living organisms, including plants, animals—and we humans—have some capacity for regeneration as part of their natural process of maintaining tissues and organs. Ecological regeneration is the capacity of an ecosystem, and the biodiversity that it supports, to naturally renew itself and recover from disturbances.

The human body has a similar capacity for regeneration. For example, damaged cells, tissues, and organs can often be naturally restored to something close to full function.

Economic systems can also be regenerative—if they use a cradle-to-cradle approach. This is a holistic circular waste-free system that explicitly protects and restores the environment throughout the entire value chain, from the material extraction to the manufacturing, transportation, distribution, use, and end-of-life phases. The use of clean renewable energy is fundamental in all phases, as is the continual reuse of materials, and recirculation of organic materials back into nature.

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Regenerative agriculture, for instance, utilizes techniques such as minimum tillage, diverse plantings, and no chemical fertilizers. These practices have proven to regenerate soils, ecosystems, and biodiversity, while supporting the well-being of local farmers, communities, and food consumers.

This is a stark contrast to the linear “take-it, make-it, waste-it” economic system that dominates today. Massive amounts of raw materials are extracted from the earth’s landscape, made into products, used often for a short time, and then discarded. The entire process generates colossal amounts of ecological damage and massive amounts of solid, toxic, and gaseous wastes—including greenhouse gasses--that are spewed back into nature.

Regenerating Communities is Key

We must regenerative our neighborhoods and communities to regenerate our economic systems and thus the climate and ecological systems that give us life.

What brings communities together is a sense of purpose. There can be no greater purpose now than preparing residents for the impacts speeding their way due to the C-E-B crisis and engaging them in activities that help regenerate natural systems.

Heart-to-heart relationships form a community, and they come about only through continuous meaningful communication. In today’s hyperactive, digitally mediated world, this requires the formation of multi-sectoral coalitions of grassroots, neighborhood, civic, faith/spirituality, education, after-school, environmental, mental health, social service, business, government, and other community leaders.

These “Resilience Coordinating Networks” (RCNs) develop, implement, and continually innovate to improve strategies that use a public health approach to help all residents strengthen their capacity for physical, social, psychological, and emotional wellness and resilience during persistent adversities.

Each RCN is unique—there is no one-size-fits-all approach. However, in some way most build both “strong” and “weak” social connections throughout the community. Strong connections are those between friends, families, and neighbors that people have close bonds with. Weak connections are equally important. They are bridges between different bonding networks that enable people to share important information and provide mutual assistance.

These relationships create a sense of family that helps residents feel safe and cared for. They are also vital to increasing both personal resilience and the peer support needed when disasters strike.

To build those connections, and do their part to reduce their contribution to the C-E-B crisis, another emphasis of many RCNs is to actively engage residents in regenerating local conditions. This often includes building safe, equitable, climate-resilient, zero-emission, transportation, housing, parks, and other physical/built infrastructure.

It can also include regenerating local economic conditions by promoting zero-emission climate-resilient local businesses that create family-wage jobs. Some RCNs focus on regenerating ecological systems by restoring local forests, wetlands, and biodiversity.

Regenerating our neighborhoods and communities is key to regenerating the economy and natural environment sufficiently to keep global temperatures at tolerable levels and eventually reduce them to safe quantities. Regeneration should now be a top local and national priority.