Dietmar Rabich, Dülmen, Börnste, Waldweg — 2015 — 4649, CC BY-SA 4.0
Distinguishing “regenerative”
Regenerative is more than sustainable. For most companies, sustainability means doing less harm.
Let’s face it: much of what passes for sustainability in modern corporations is an attempt to preserve our ability to plunder the Earth. As Robin Wall Kimmerer notes, sustainability is about being able to keep on taking, as opposed to giving and receiving in a way that’s appropriate.
Regenerative Capitalism
Regenerative capitalism looks to reconsider our current capitalist ideologies by looking beyond net-zero emissions to a net-positive impact on the planet.
As we continue to live beyond our planet’s limitations, we need to reconsider the capitalist system we live in. This entails looking beyond net-zero emissions and setting eyes on leaving a net-positive impact on the planet. It’s called regenerative capitalism, and it holds a message of hope.
In April 2021, PepsiCo announced plans to practice regenerative farming on more than seven million acres of land worldwide, the equivalent of its entire agricultural footprint. “We know we have to do even more to create truly systemic change,” said the company’s Chief Sustainability Officer Jim Andrew.
“This is pretty major,” says John Elkington, author and authority on corporate responsibility and sustainability. “It’s a bit like when Microsoft said it was going to offset its carbon emissions for its entire history as a business.”
Regenerative capitalism, a notion coined by John Fullerton in 2015, or in PepsiCo’s case regenerative farming, refers to business practices that restore and build rather than exploit and destroy. Regenerative is about viewing the goal of net-zero carbon emissions as a stop-off on the longer journey to create the conditions for life to flourish resiliently and renew infinitely.
Businesses big and small have ascribed to the principles of being participants in the sustainable, responsible economy for decades now. “To be more transparent, to report, all of that sort of stuff. To be more accountable and to engage its stakeholders in a range of ways,” Elkington says….
However, sustainability, understood as merely mitigating harm, is a Band-Aid for broader issues with our planet. The reality is the way we do business remains harmful to the world’s long-term future. We continue living beyond our planet’s limitations, wrecking the habitat in which we expect to live for centuries to come.
More radical change is needed, and regenerative capitalism could be the answer we’re looking for.