Sustainability vs. Regeneration
More and more people, companies, and organizations are seeking out ways to reduce their environmental impact on the planet and the environment. They are wanting to incorporate their sustainable values into their lives and their missions.
Homeowners are installing solar power to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels.
Companies are making products out of recycled materials to show their corporate responsibility.
Municipalities are banning harmful emissions in order to have clean air to breathe.
The UN defines sustainability as the ability to meet our current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. This model seeks to do less harm now so that our kids and grandkids will be able to survive.
But is this good enough?
What if we didn’t just seek to do less harm now, but instead sought out solutions to enable us to do better?
We are living in an era of degeneration defined by extraction and destruction. You have to look no further than your own home.
Your water comes from a municipal supply that comes from somewhere, but likely aren’t really sure where. It leaves the house combined with all other types of sewage and stormwater and goes somewhere, but again not really sure exactly where.
Our electricity comes from a power source far away likely using fossil fuel or ecologically destructive hydroelectric power sources. We aren’t exactly sure where it comes from, how it is generated, or the negative externalities of that source.
Let us instead reframe the question from “How do we do less harm?" to “How do we create more good?”
For that we need to look at living system design to understand the shift between degenerative practices and regenerative practices.
Our current model is based on degenerative design that extracts and degrades. It requires extensive inputs and energy and has high externalities. Moving from degeneration to regeneration, we can go beyond “sustainable” so that we are rebuilding, creating, and thriving.
A living system is based on an integrative design processes that builds upon itself. The diversity of life fuels and enables. There is no waste, there is no depletion.
We can design our lives and our homes based on living systems. Our homes can harness enough energy on-site so as to not require outside input.
We can collect enough rainwater to use for our needs.
We can reclassify waste so that it becomes a resource within the system.
This is what nature does. It doesn’t deplete itself. It is a virtuous system forever living, enhancing, thriving.
This is regeneration.
