An emerging definition of Regenerative Real Estate™

Regenerative real estate is the intersection between health and wellness, sustainability, community, and ecology, and spirit.

It is these five elements that create a holistic environment that helps people thrive. Regenerative real estate can apply towards both urban and rural contexts, and while its origins came from the residential built environment, it is a framework that is adaptive and can be applied towards any human-sculpted environment.

Health & Wellness

Our land, our spaces, and our homes are places that are much more than just dirt under our feet or a roof over our heads.

They are the backdrop to our lives where we raise our families, rejuvenate our bodies, minds, and souls. This is where we work, play, and love. Our spaces are sacred, and they should resonate and encourage health and well-being. This looks like spaces that have incorporated biophilic design and non-toxic materials. The space should help to ground us, and root us in place by celebrating life and encouraging wildness and beauty.

Sustainability

From the resources and materials that are sourced, to the systems of our buildings, sustainability is about intentional design.

The built environment is traditionally one of the most wasteful industries in the world. A truly regenerative space takes advantage of the patterns that nature provides to work it to harness in order to provide abundance. This can be everything from sustainably harvested materials, building science, energy generation and consumption, resource management, and water catchment/treatment systems.

Community

As a species we are social creatures that need and thrive upon the interaction of others.

The recognition of community is what separates regenerative real estate from mainstream sustainable real estate. While people have inherent preferences on a sociability continuum, no one is meant to live in isolation.

We all need community.

Our community bonds are what hold us together as thoughtful, emotional, and spiritual beings. It is our community that shapes our culture. We rely upon community to cultivate our children, grow our food, stimulate our minds. We gather in community to celebrate as well as honor, morn, and pray. Community does not happen on accident, and it must be intentional with mindfulness of diligence and design. We are all co-creators of the communities we live in.

Ecology

We are living beings within living systems.

Our role should be as that of a steward, here to tend the land so that it will remain productive and resilient for infinite generations. We can do that by working with the land, soil, and place in a way that encourages life and helps all living things live in ecological symbiosis.

Our homes are living systems within living systems. We can and should help guide the land so that it retains water, plays host to beneficial pollinators, honors the native species, while still allowing for food production.

Adapting our culture to be more ecologically integrated is what makes this world beautiful.

Spirit

A home is both literal and symbolic.

It is a place of refuge and healing. As we attempt to tap into what it means to be alive and to be human, we invariably find that there is a much deeper meaning to the places we spend a large part of our lives.

There is a spiritual dimension to live in reciprocity with place. It requires us to honor that we are of nature, and not above nature. Regeneration is innate to nature and humans on a cellular level, and now more than ever, we must find meaning in a complex and synthetic world.

This is an excerpt from a Medium article published about Latitude and Regenerative Real Estate.