Author: Lena Müller-Naendrup & Oliver Lukitsch
Image: Elizabeth Gottwald
Wherever we look, the evidence of climate change is undeniable. Environmental catastrophes are regularly dominating global headlines, forcing governments, societies, businesses, and individuals alike to confront this new reality. However, the conversation has shifted – it’s no longer a polite suggestion to make changes. Transformation is now demanded, and the European Union is pushing industry to publicly account for its ecological and social footprint.
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) reporting, governed by EU regulations like the CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive) and ESRS (European Sustainability Reporting Standards), has become an overwhelming obligation for many companies. It’s a bureaucratic maze that drains resources, making it feel like a chore, a box to tick, rather than a path to real progress. Many organizations feel they are constantly playing catch-up, held back by ever-changing reporting demands that seem impossible to address efficiently, let alone take sustainable and major concrete measures of impactful transformation.
How can businesses break free from this exhausting cycle? How can we transform the green transition from a compliance burden into a chance for genuine, innovative change? In this blog post, we’ll explore an alternative approach – one that shifts the narrative from bureaucratic obligation to opportunity for a radical, positive transformation.
Regeneration: A Future Beyond Sustainability?
The concept of Regenerative Business Models has been gaining attention recently. At first glance, it may seem like a repackaging of sustainability and circular economy efforts, but in reality, it represents a fundamental shift. Regeneration changes the larger framework in which these efforts operate.
Sustainability traditionally focuses on meeting the needs of the present without compromising future generations. It’s about reducing harm – like achieving net zero carbon emissions – as a way to limit our current negative impact. Circularity, on the other hand, emphasizes keeping resources in use for a s long as possible, by turning waste into inputs for new cycles of production. From closed-loop systems in agriculture to life-cycle assessments in construction, the circular economy is full of innovative solutions. Regenerative approaches incorporate these ideas but also go beyond them: They aren’t just about layering more solutions onto existing sustainability frameworks or tackling environmental issues from a different angle. Regenerative models aim to create net-positive value for all a broad set of stakeholders. This includes employees, shareholders, customers, partners, and communities – but also the planet itself. A regenerative system treats ecosystems and human communities not merely as resources but as active participants essential to long-term success. More than conservation, these models envision a future of collective-thriving.
Why Regenerative Models?
The obvious answer is distracting. Yes, regenerative business models aim to do more than just maintain the status quo by, for instance, reducing carbon emissions to zero. They aim to create net positive value – not only by reducing carbon emissions even further below zero, but also by creating value as a business and by creating value for neighboring communities and their ecosystems. But achieving sustainability goals is a challenge in itself. So why should we opt for a model that demands even more than necessary, given that many organizations already struggle to transform?
The key difference is not to be found in quantities and numbers. The key difference between traditional and novel regenerative approaches is that the latter provides an integrated, bigger (systemic) picture of what a positive future will look like – a future that is experienced and felt as simply better for us and the planet. Regenerative approaches foster a positive narrative that avoids defeatism and symptoms of paralysis. Companies that commit to a regenerative model are motivated by a shared vision of a thriving future, not just compliance. This approach encourages businesses to become active participants in shaping a desirable, regenerative future rather than mere reducers of harm.
While there is not one regenerative story for all organizations, the general regenerative narrative builds on a few core principles that make it unique:
- They actively contribute value: As we said, instead of merely sparing environmental and social systems from harm, regenerative businesses actively engage with them to create new value beyond the organization – both tangible, like profits and resources, and immaterial, like enhancing well-being and social interactions.
The French startup Roofscapes developed a powerful example of how to actively contribute value, both ecologically and socially: Roofscapes transforms underutilized urban roofs into self-sustaining ecosystems. These green rooftops sequester carbon, improve air quality, and can be a ground for urban organic farming initiatives. But their impact goes even beyond the tangible value. Breathing green spaces in dense urban areas, the built roofscapes can foster a sense of connection, offering residents a biophilic environment where they can come together.
- They are all-in on multi-stakeholder engagement: At their heart, regenerative organizations prioritize the interests of a broad set of stakeholders, from shareholders to the local community, and – most importantly – the environment. This inclusive approach fosters collective benefit, addressing the needs of these stakeholders holistically.
The German clay construction company ClayTec, for instance, actively collaborates with universities and organizations such as Dachverband Lehm e.V, dedicated to promoting sustainable clay building standards. On top of this, from early on, ClayTec has prioritized building a strong network, creating synergies across educational, environmental, and industry sectors. These efforts enable knowledge sharing and collective benefit by cultivating a skilled community in sustainable and regenerative building practices.
- Self-Regeneration: Regenerative businesses are characterized by their ability to renew themselves without external intervention, much like a living ecosystem that thrives through natural cycles of growth and reformation. In this sense, they are based on the premise that not only biological systems are living systems, but also social systems and thus organizations or even whole societies.
Self-regeneration can begin at the level of employee well-being and satisfaction. An example comes from Timberland, the global footwear company, which offers full-time employees up to 40 hours of paid time off annually to engage in volunteering and nature conversation activities. This simple yet impactful initiative fosters social engagement, personal growth, and a deeper connection to community and nature. By investing in their employee’s holistic development, regenerative organizations enable a shared commitment and create a culture of renewal.
As you can see, regenerative approaches embrace a wider, holistic vision: they seek an ecological transformation that aligns business goals with positive value creation for communities and the environment. However, the journey toward regeneration is rarely a sweeping transformation achieved all at once. Often, it begins with small, intentional steps – like a pilot project or an internal (bottom-up) team initiative. Yet, as principles of self-renewal, multik-stakeholder engagement, and net-positive impact are gradually adopted, a regenerative vision can take root and grow within the organization.
Cultivating a Regenerative Vision
But how does the journey start? The big challenge is to make such a complex approach work in a way that people can actually relate to, grasp, and understand it. This is the key. When an organization’s or company’s employees are emotionally connected to the potential of a regenerative future, they are drawn in and inspired to do “what is necessary”.
But how do you create a holistic, forward-looking vision that is in harmony with a particular organization or business? More importantly, how do we create a clear, relatable, regenerative vision of the future when it is grounded in the complexity of stakeholder synergies? On the one hand, the opportunity and advantage of the regenerative approach is that it understands organizations as living systems. Yet, on the other hand, change in living systems cannot be imposed. That is why a regenerative vision cannot be created simply by brainstorming and drawing up a plan for a future business model that a company and its people will then follow and mechanically implement. Doing so is likely to create a future that is not relatable and emotionally palpable for everyone involved. It may evoke a moment of awe, but over time people will lose touch with such a strategy, because it is more about imposing our own ‘creative ideas’ on the world than listening to the actual future potentials that “want to emerge”.
How, then, can we shape a common future-oriented understanding of a company’s regenerative strategy (given its complexity and holistic nature)? What is needed is a critical skill in our times when uncertainty and the complexity of the world is rising steeply. This skill is called “futures literacies”. Futures literacy means that one can act and understand the future and its latent potentials. So what does it involve and what does it mean to adopt a regenerative vision for your organization?The Ability to Navigate Complexity with an Ecological Mindset
1. The Ability to Navigate Complexity with an Ecological Mindset
Regenerative organizations deeply embody an ecological mindset. They view themselves not just as operational entities but as living systems intertwined with larger ecological and community networks. Navigating this complexity is crucial; it involves perceiving the interconnectedness and potential synergies that can lead to sustainable growth. Methods that allow for such a thing are, for instance, the creation of a core design model. A core design model illustrates the essentials – the elements and connections between those elements of a product or service, thus easing its complexity and increasing its “communicability”. But here, it is crucial not to “explain away” the complexity but to understand what wants to emerge from it so as to yield it to one’s advantage – something that will be crucial for the synergistic approach of regenerative business models.
2. The Ability to Change Perspectives and Build Synergistic Relationships
Adopting a regenerative strategy (and practices) requires moving beyond traditional business mindsets focused on competition to collaboration, with a focus on enriching (rather than “exploiting”) ecosystems and the communities embedded in them. Regenerative organizations consciously choose to emphasize collaboration, adaptability, pro-activity, and inclusivity, encouraging diverse perspectives and cooperative relationships that strengthen resilience and promote mutual benefit. This mindset allows organizations to develop flexible strategies that adapt to changing needs, ensuring that all stakeholders within the regenerative systems work towards a common goal / good.
3. The Ability to Grasp Regenerative Potentials
Regenerative businesses perceive organizations as living, dynamic systems. Instead of imposing top-down strategies, it’s vital to understand what wants to emerge naturally from within. This is achieved by sensing latent potentials – uncovering hidden opportunities and strengths that aren’t immediately obvious.
Understanding and working with the concept of latent potentials is crucial in this context. Living systems are averse to change, and even more so, they resist change imposed from outside. Therefore, it is essential to find methods that help them bring about novelty (and innovation) from within. For organizations, this means that instead of imposing current trends on them, we can tap into their latent potential – the hidden possibilities waiting to be realized. In doing so, we not only create deep, internal transformations that avoid the friction of top-down mandates, but we also open the door to a path of continuous growth and regeneration unique to an organization.
A Case Study: “Interface” – Building a Regenerative Vision in Action
Interface, a global floor manufacturer, stands a pioneering example of how a company attempts to adopt a regenerative approach. The company has already long ago established itself as a sustainability leader and has publicly declared commitment to becoming one of the world’s first environmentally sustainable and, ultimately, regenerative organizations.
Initially, Interface began its journey with the mission to revolutionize the petroleum-intensive carpet industry by eliminating any negative impact its operations might have on the environment by 2020. However, soon the company realized that sustainability alone – focusing on reducing harm – was not enough. To truly make a difference, the company shifted its mindset to embrace a regenerative perspective, aiming to create a system that actively restores and enriches the environment and communities the company touches.
This transformation demanded a radical shift in how Interface viewed its role in the world. Rather than operating as a traditional manufacturer focussing solely on outputs, the company redefined itself as an active participant in an interconnected ecosystem and embraced a complete renewal process. To start with, the company completely restructured and redesigned its production facilities. Launched as the project “Factory as a Forest”, a designated team investigated how a factory would function if it were shaped by nature so that it could have similar positive impacts. By studying the surrounding ecosystem, Interface’s factory in Atlanta, Georgia, was redesigned to mimic a forest’s ability to provide ecosystem services such as air purification, water filtration, and carbon sequestration, for instance. As a result, Interface not only redesigned its own production facilities in Troup County in Georgia but also developed a methodology that provides other companies with an effective roadmap to rethink their own production facilities. You can find a more detailed and publicly available document describing the whole project in methodology here.
#The company’s commitment to regeneration extends to its products. Interface developed the world’s first carbon-negative carpet tiles. Inspired by nature’s ability to store carbon through processes like photosynthesis, Interface’s innovation team engineered a product that not only reduces carbon emissions but actively removes and stores them. At the core of the innovation is a non-vinyl based bio composite that incorporates bio-based materials capable of sequestering carbon. This breakthrough not only exemplifies Interface’s dedication to sustainable innovation but also illustrates again how learning from nature and fundamentally rethinking long-established production routines can lead to regenerative practices that create a positive impact.
Underpinning this success is Interface’s belief in the power of multi-stakeholder engagement. The efforts they have invested in developing the first regenerative projects including the “Factory as a Forest” methodology and carbon-negative carpet tiles are to be shared and should inspire other companies. They have joined a network of companies aiming to realize the achievable impact of nature-based solutions called Project Positive. Through this network Interface can foster strong synergistic relationships and co-create solutions that benefit communities beyond its own reach. By fundamentally shifting its mindset and embracing a regenerative vision, Interface has become a beacon of what is possible when businesses move beyond sustainability. This approach has not only led to positive environmental outcomes but has also contributed to the company’s financial success. In the third quarter of 2024, Interface reported net sales of $334.3 million, marking a 10.7% year-over-year increase and achieved a gross profit margin of 37.1%, up 162 basis points from the prior year period. These results showcase how adopting a new perspective – one that sees businesses as part of a living system – can transform ambitions into tangible, positive outcomes for the planet and future generations.
A Call to Regenerate
As we already mentioned, cultivating a regenerative vision is not about adopting a one-size-fits-all approach; it’s about rethinking the way organizations view their role within the larger ecosystem. By shifting focus from harm reduction to creating net-positive value, regenerative models allow organizations to embrace complexity, foster collaborations, and uncover untapped potentials. They offer a narrative of hope and opportunity – one that replaces compliance fatigue with a shared vision of a thriving future for businesses, communities, and the planet.
Examples like Interface demonstrate that committing to regeneration can inspire innovative solutions.The green transition doesn’t have to be a burden. Instead, it can be a joyful and inspiring journey of discovery and transformation, aligning business success with ecological and social well-being. The path to regeneration may begin with small steps – such as piloting new practices and devoting significant efforts to developing a new, regenerative mindset – but these steps can grow into profound change. As companies navigate rising regulatory demands, embracing a regenerative vision can help them not only meet these challenges but also redefine success on their own terms.
If you are inspired to proactively shape your organization’s green transition or curious to learn more about cultivating regenerative visions, we’re here to help. Our leap process is designed to help organizations reimagine their future, uncover radical innovations, and develop the mindset and tools needed to turn vision into action. Reach out to learn how we can support you in shaping a thriving, regenerative future.
