What sparked my interest in regenerative business was an IT analysts conference held by Zoho in the summer of 2022 in Austin, Texas. Until then, as an analyst, I’d spent a decade attending vendor conferences to hear and write about CRM and CX application software and platform developments. This conference differed from the usual tech briefings, focusing instead on Zoho’s approach to business. The adjective regenerative never cropped up, but in hindsight, that is precisely what was behind the company’s business philosophy. I shall be adding an article soon that goes into more detail. 

The spark turned into a fire in February 2023, following a ten-day visit to Zoho’s HQ in Chennai, India, and a two-day trip to one of their farms and schools in rural Tenkasi in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. I first heard of the term regenerative capitalism at one of the breakfast briefings given by Chief Strategy Officer Vijay Sundaram, who humbly asked us ( a dozen analysts) what we thought about their business philosophy. Frankly, he didn’t need our blessing, nor did I feel we had anything to teach him.

On my return home, I dedicated my time to exploring regenerative business at the expense of my usual work. It soon became apparent that my learning journey would be extremely long and wide-ranging. The Obsidian graph above gives you an idea of what I mean, and it’s still expanding. There were so many interrelated subjects and dimensions to get my head around. Hardly a day goes by when I don’t reach for another book covering some essential angle. It cannot be simplified into 6–8 bullet points. It’s far too complex for that.

On the plus side, tens of thousands of scientists, economists, ecologists, authors, institutions, and visionaries far better qualified than me encourage us to transform our world and ourselves to avoid catastrophic destruction. I’m just trying to synthesize their wisdom and articulate it as best I can to those without the luxury of research time. At best, I’m a raindrop in this vast ocean of regenerative endeavor, but now I am part of it, giving me a welcome sense of purpose and a more profound realization of why an informed level of consciousness matters.

The rest of this article outlines my early observations.

Climate and humanity are inextricably linked

It wasn’t climate change that inspired me, but the potential for humanity’s well-being and growth in consciousness. I’m a Johnny-come-lately to climate change and the potential catastrophic overshoot beyond planetary boundaries threatening all life, not just humanity. To overcome my ignorance, I embarked on an eye-opening online course at the SDG Academy in Stockholm, led by climate science pioneer and originator of the Planetary Boundaries framework, Professor Johan Rockström, also Director of an EU-funded program at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

The red zones in the three illustrations highlight transgressed boundaries. In the 14 years since 2009, six of the nine have entered the danger zones. Given the non-linearity of cause and effect, even if all the actions to meet the UN’s sustainable development goals and all COP agreements were fully implemented, scientists are uncertain if we can rescue the situation. At best, it may be an exercise in damage limitation. Nevertheless, to quote Marcus Tullius Cicero;

Where there’s life, there’s hope.

What is beyond any doubt is that the transgressions are caused by humans, most notably industry, unbridled demand for GDP growth, unsatiated consumption, and plain old greed. Sustainability is insufficient; we need a massive shift to regenerative economics and values. Like it or not, we are in this together. To paraphrase R. Buckminster Fuller, we need a new operating manual for Spaceship Earth.¹

Our economic sub-system is the ailing heart of our planetary health system

The picture above shows two different views of my research into regenerative business. The left one is the economic view, highlighting the strong links to the theme of planetary boundaries. The right one is the viewpoint of planetary boundaries. One cannot be addressed without impacting the other. I’ll cover some of the other connected themes in later posts. They include:

• Anthropogenesis — the evolution of human consciousness
• Case stories of companies exhibiting regenerative characteristics
• Influential institutions and significant pressure groups
• Regenerative cultures and education
• Regenerative design principles and biomimicry
• Systems thinking, ecosystems collaboration and innovation
• Transformation methods to move towards a regenerative capability

Just as human health is best addressed holistically as a system of integrated sub-systems to avoid unwanted side effects, we need a similar holistic approach to overcome this profound and critically urgent challenge. Planetary health is imperiled by economic infarction caused by a morally bankrupt financial system, government paralysis, short-termism, and slavish consumption.

Regenerative businesses have a vital part to play, directly and in partnership²

The latest UN report on Sustainable Development Goals 2023 makes for grim reading. It illuminates the backsliding among the wealthiest nations in meeting their agreed commitments, especially on their failures to provide debt relief for developing nations. In the words of the Secretary-General, António Guterres:

''Unless we act now, the 2030 Agenda could become an epitaph for a world that might have been.''

Regenerative businesses are crucial in helping meet many SDGs directly or in partnership with government agencies, policymakers, and ecosystem partners. The SDGs identified in red are where they can have a direct role, such as gender equality and providing decent and purposeful work. They can also positively impact their industries, innovation, and, depending on the type of business, infrastructure.

A measurable aspect of inequality is the CEO-to-employee pay ratio, which, according to the Economic Policy Institute, has increased by 1460% in the last forty years. In 2022, CEO remuneration was 399 times that of the average employee.³ This is in the direct control of the board of any company, but it will be of concern to any CEO striving to create a regenerative business environment. Responsible consumption and production are influenced by marketing and manufacturing processes.

Positive forces led by women are at work to demolish the extractive paradigm

Before embarking on my research, I had no interest in economics. Like many, I felt it was the preserve of bean counters, financial directors, bankers, and government treasuries. Fortunately, I now realize my ignorance and the central role of economics and our economic system in the extractive destruction of our planet and the livelihoods of ordinary people.

Kate Raworth — Doughnut Economics (2017)⁴

First up as a heroine of regenerative economics is Kate Haworth, who dared to think differently. Haworth proffers an alternative economic system in which economics is the servant of humanity and not its voracious parasite intent on limitless GDP growth at the expense of the limited resources and services of the entire planet. She is a Senior Associate at Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute and a Professor of Practice at Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. Her excellent book, Doughnut Economics, builds on Rockström’s Planetary Boundaries Framework, giving economics the regenerative and distributive service role of keeping humanity within a safe space and overcoming the inequalities that surround us today. She talks about evicting the cuckoo (GDP) in the nest and strongly advocates this new life-supporting purpose for economics.

Mariana Mazzucato — Mission Economy (2022)⁵

My second heroine is Mariana Mazzucato, a professor of Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London and founding director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose. Apart from a short stint as a consultant helping the UK Pensions Regulator map end-to-end processes and identify relevant technology, I had minimal direct experience with the potential regenerative role of government agencies and policymakers. She cites the ambitious NASA Apollo Moonshot initiated by President J.F. Kennedy as a worthy example of the positive impact governments can have by creating the conditions for impactful partnerships with the private sector in achieving big, bold, ambitious projects. Governments should follow this example but select and enable substantial missions grounded in improving people’s lives within planetary constraints.

Mazzucato also identified four hostile forces that lie behind our societal crisis:

1. Short-termism of the financial sector
2. The financialization of business — ( parasitical value extraction fueling debt — my own words)
3. The climate emergency
4. Slow or absent governments — (echoing my comments above on backsliding governments regarding the UN SDGs.

Mazzucato doesn’t just identify what governments must do but also provides very practical guidance on mission maps that harness the different elements and constituents to create a purposeful and executable mission. We also need politicians backed up by civil servants who share Mazzucato’s mission-oriented philosophy, long-term vision, and practical skills to follow through. Sadly, the UK government, in recent decades, has hollowed out those practical competencies through ineffective outsourcing. With elections coming up this year in the UK and the US, all parties have a distinct vision vacuum.

Marjorie Kelly — Wealth Supremacy — How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises (2023)⁶

Marjorie Kelly is the third heroine exploring the direct link between the parasitical expansion of financialization and our planetary and inequality crises. Kelly is a Distinguished Senior Fellow with The Democracy Collaborative.

She starts by saying that the average person is oblivious of the speculative practices of the finance sector, especially institutional investors and private equity firms that have created huge debt burdens on low-income people and nations. She feels the imperative to call it out and name it so that more of us become conscious of how the avaricious pursuit of wealth by the few keeps the majority in hock to these Wall Street wizards of financialization.

She cites the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, which stated that in 2022, financial assets were worth more than five times the value of the US GDP. Her take on financialization is that it is an extractive force built on short-term speculative, not productive investment. Mergers and acquisitions too often happen financed by banks to asset strip and extract wealth for investors. This is already happening with utilities such as water and waste treatment. Privatizing the water industry in the UK in 1989 is a case in point. Water is one of life’s essentials.

According to the Guardian newspaper, 70% of the UK’s water and waste treatment is foreign-owned. Complicated ownership structures further exacerbate the situation, masking accountability and behind-the-scenes financial shenanigans. Investors have extracted over £72 billion in dividends since privatization.⁷ Instead of investing in modern sewage systems, shareholders have pocketed these exorbitant dividends and Ofwat, the regulator, is routinely asked to approve jacked-up prices that have increased by over a third on average. In the UK, at least things are approaching boiling point as the public is made aware of water companies’ daily river fouling.

In 2023, the Environment Agency stated that there were 3.6 million hours of sewage spills, or 410 years’ worth, by my calculations.

In 2021, the New York Stock Exchange and Intrinsic Exchange Group announced a new extractive financialization vehicle, Natural Asset Companies (NACS). Wall Street is planning to extract wealth from nature’s ecosystem services. This cynical attempt to make money from natural assets such as forestry, water, farms, etc., is worth $125 trillion. As of 1 January 2024, the US stock market is worth $50.8 trillion,⁸ around 38% of what these modern-day pirates have in mind.

Kelly asks the question:

''Which view will prevail? Water as a human right, a global commons? Or water as a trillion-dollar market opportunity?''⁹

Her solution is democratic economics, where the many are put in control to maximize ‘lives of dignity on a flourishing Earth.’¹⁰Kelly concludes that until we realise the poisonous and insidious nature of wealth supremacy and how it blights all life on the planet, we cannot break through and create a fairer and better world for all.

What each of these heroines are doing, along with scientists like Rockström, is to raise our awareness, if only we had ears to hear.¹¹

Our collective consciousness needs a substantial uplift. You can’t serve God and Mammon,¹² and never has this been a more relevant truism.

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Footnotes:

1. Fuller, Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth (p. 1). The Estate of R. Buckminster Fuller. Kindle Edition.
2. [https://sdgs.un.org/documents/sustainable-development-goals-report-2023-53220]
3. https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2021/
4. Kate Raworth, Doughnut Economics — Seven ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist, 2017
5. Mazzucato, Mariana. Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism -Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition, 2022.
6. Kelly, Marjorie. Wealth Supremacy: How the Extractive Economy and the Biased Rules of Capitalism Drive Today’s Crises. Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
7. Ibid (p.8)
8. https://siblisresearch.com/data/us-stock-market-value/
9. Ibid (p. 9–10)
10. Ibid (p.21)
11. Matthew 13:9–16Matthew 6:24