Lets dare to do things differently 

The Regenerative Playbook landed at the World Book Day Zoom Regenerative special event on the 1st of March. Below we present a collection of comments, observations and reviews from the launch, and on the playbook.

Joanna Watchman: Last night, we had the great pleasure of launching The Regenerative Playbook – a collaboration with (and for) two incredible changemakers, Anna Williamson MSc, FRSA, LFA & Martin Brown. It was inspired by the Content Coms Little Books series which have been such a force for good. Both Anna and Martin (kick-starters of Zoom Regenerative) give far more than they ever receive or ask for in return. I urge anyone who is looking to “go beyond sustainability with aspirational and transformational ideas” to download it. Also, a huge thank you to Josie Warden at the RSA for her inspirational foreword. 

The Regenerative Playbook is all about taking things to the next level with sustainability. A journey that all of you – and your customers – find yourself upon. Joanna Watchman

We need to be regenerative. But what does this mean? 

As this playbook shows, it means asking different and better questions, ones which can help us to recognise and work with the true interdependencies of our living world; it means nurturing the potential that all people and communities already have to be sources of health for all life on earth and giving that potential space to grow and be realised; and it means working not only to change ‘out there’ but also to change ‘in here’, our own mindsets and behaviours, and those of our organisations. Josie Warden

Martin Brown: “Against the backdrop of Monday’s IPCC report that triggered headlines of the earth hurtling to destruction, the Regenerative Playbook provides a framework for moving sustainability beyond business as usual through asking better and different questions. By seeing ourselves as part of rather than apart from the living systems that sustain us. As Robin Wall Kimmerer has often said “had we respected the earth, learned from our elders, taken only what was needed and used what we had taken, then today we wouldn’t fear our own atmosphere”. 

The Regenerative Playbook is in many ways a milestone, the cumulative effort of two years of Zoom Regenerative’s, journey and opens a new chapter. In addition to our nourishing Tuesday regen gatherings, the playbook adds deeper and wider advocacy, nursing and support for those embarking on regenerative journeys. I am honoured and humbled to be part of such a vibrant regenerative collaborative of awesome friends from around the world”

Josie’s words regarding ‘those communities who have stewarded traditional knowledge about how to live in good relationship with our world’ resonates with Anna, and she asks:

Anna Williamson: Are technical solutions the answer? “I used to think that the top global environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem col­lapse, and climate change. I thought that with thirty years of good science we could address these problems, but I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a spiritual and cultural transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that.”— Gus Speth, American environmental attorney and past dean of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies

Foundational wisdom can guide and teach: “(to) our brothers and sisters out there, get to know where you live, because it’s place-based. The land is alive, the rivers are alive, the living systems are alive, the birds and the fish – everything communicates. Don’t see yourself as a human being as elitist and above other living systems.” – Dr. Anne Poelina, Indigenous community leader, human and earth rights advocate.

The Regenerative Playbook seeks to help businesses and organisations translate foundational wisdom into their own culture, to deliver regenerative practice that sticks.

For more information on the Regenerative Playbook see Regen/ Notes 32

And the reviews are in … 

I’m up to my eyeballs with Zoom which I love but the most nourishing has been your zRegen series – really fantastic to meet such a broad selection of people with such wonderful ideas. This sense of accessibility and advocacy to wider networks is really very core.  John Ennis

A jewel of a book, a guide for the future, a blueprint for change…however you describe it, this is a publication that anyone that cares about where we go from here should own and read! What a great collaboration! I’ll share the Regenerative Playbook far and wide. Terry John

On the zoom regen (Playbook) meeting with some amazing collaborations and working at going about things a different way. Excellent meeting of the mind and spirit of regeneration. A very fulfilling engagement indeed.  Walter Lourie

Thank you for both hosting such an energising evening yesterday, and for forwarding a link to join as well … the uplift was exactly what I needed. Look forward to seeing what comes next – all the very best. Scott McAulay

I am part of a postgraduate (Building Beyond Borders)and we will have an exhibition in Belgium together with the studio BC architects soon in april. Its about experimenting with regenerative / circular/ biodiversity positive/ waste materials within the postgraduate studio of Building Beyond Borders. One part of the exhibition is a library of books that works inspiring for the visitor. Maybe this regenerative playbook can be presented as well. Jasper Goris

I love that point about mindful connection being the start. Emphasises that it’s a daily mindset habit and not something you do as a wellbeing modality. Great conversation everyone. An antidote to the bleakness of events in the last few days. It’s so good to be part of a network of hopeful, positive, heartful and mindful people. I was thinking this morning how the playbook looks like the wisdom cards I use with my students when I teach meditation. It has that spirit of ‘invitations to reflect’. Beautiful. Sophie Lacey

100 copies for Belgium! Alexander Mijts

I’ve just seen the playbook. Congratulations – it’s excellent. Chloe Bullock

Definitely will work as a conversation starter in class! Congrats on your achievements with this book. Giovanna Di Monte-Milner

Just what I needed today after the devastation of floods pushing the war down the front pages of the news today… sigh. There is a better world out there – lets help concrete it 🙂 Caroline Pidcock

Thank you so much for this inspiring and hopeful book launch! I look forward to the hard copy book (and will start reading the soft copy) 😉 Britt Puhlmann

It was a lovely event last night. Thought provoking conversations in the company of good and supportive humans was just what we needed after the last few days. Well done for launching the playbook. Ordered it and will review soon!  Oliver Riley

Wonderful conversations and observations as ever! Well done to Martin Brown and Anna Williamson & congratulations on the Regenerative Playbook. Ann Vanner

Great publication Martin. Well done. Inspiring as ever! Vassos Chrysostomou.

Would be great to share it in The Ecosystem Incubator, as we are bridging a lot there – and good to give to clients too. Rachel Sheila Kan

Downloaded and have to agree it is a great read. A thought provoking read too. Michael McGowan

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If all this sounds good you can access your copy of The Regenerative Playbook here. (And no, you won’t be bombarded with emails if you complete the contact form)

If you’d like a hard copy, or to order multiple copies for company libraries and reception areas, please get in touch and we can quote you – and we are only looking to cover printing, postage and admin costs.

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Regen/ Notes

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This post appeared first on Regen/ Notes  a newsletter of regenerative news, stories and more, with a sideways focus on the built environment, curated by Martin Brown. It is a companion to our Regen/ Zoom activities where we connect the spaces between regenerative dots, sharing ideas themes and work that invigorates and inspires.

Our Restore / Zoom Regenerative event, listed as an Earthday event was a bittersweet affair with the four years EU Cost Action RESTORE ending its journey on the 30th of April. And like all strong communities – RESTORE has, and will continue to seed further progress in the built environment, and beyond. I echo Carlo Battisti (chair of Restore) recent comment, ‘it has been one of the most amazing and inspiring four years of my career’

The RESTORE programme assembled, through the work of over 160 members across 40 countries a phenomenal Body of Knowledge, all freely downloadable from the RESTORE pages.

Adding to the formable Regenerative Body of Knowledge (RBoK) from the RESTORE programme, there has been a raft of publications released this week as the 4 years EU Cost Action RESTORE winds up.

• RESTORD 2030 a guide for educators,
• Restory – the story of Restore,
• A System Thinking Guide to Scale Jumping,s.

Recordings from the Sabden Restore Ready event can be viewed here, along with all other recordings for this series. This includes the brilliant Restore Animations – six short (90 sec) animations, one for each of the RESTORE working group.

Regen Notes,  a fortnightly newsletter is released through substack, as an update of regenerative news, stories and more with a sideways focus on the built environment, curated by me, Martin Brown. These newsletters will be also shared here for Patreon subscribers.

Here is Regen Notes 6, the most recent – previous newsletters can be read here.

Restore, Restory, Restord,

On a dreary wet Brussels day in 2017, I walked from the city hotel over to the COST offices for the inaugural meeting of our COST RESTORE ‘action’. Some 40 attendees shaped the work programme, collaborations and friendships for the next four years. (RESTORE – Rethinking Sustainability for a Regenerative Future)

RESTORE may now be concluding but will leave a canon legacy of publications, papers and more that will spring further regenerative projects and development. We are currently embarking on a series of RESTORE READY events across Europe – Paris, Madrid, Belgrade, Malmo and Sabden are still open for registration. 

Writing and editing of the first drafts of RESTORY – the telling the project management of our four-year research network, and of RESTORD, a guide for educators, students and partitioners, are now complete and the publication process begins.

RESTORD is based on asking what will good look like through imagining a city in the future that applied all the thinking from RESTORE, not as isolated technical or sustainability aspects, but at a system thinking, holistic level, where the synergy of the parts leads to something wonderful and beautiful, embracing complexity, at the edge of chaos. RESTORD also picks up on a long-held belief that that one of the most vital aspects of sustainability is to inspire the next generation to reach higher, to be bolder, more courageous and more disruptive from business as usual than our generation has been.

In writing RESTORD it is hard not to reflect that so much of our built environment process persists in degenerative practice, we have a long way to go in a short time to fully embrace regenerative, do more good, not only less bad, approaches. We may have the technologies but now need the mindsets. A section within RESTORD, Mind the Regenerative Future was a journey of discovery on the necessity for higher awareness and consciousness, from mindfulness to self-organising systems, from symbiotic building to Transcendental Meditation and Vastu Architecture. 

Sustainability is not possible without engaging in the process of Regeneration or Conscious Evolution …Jason Mclellan, founder of Living Building Challenge (From living Buildings to Building life) 

Eco-Literacy

RESTORD also carries an exploration of Eco Literacy and our need for standing on the shoulders of giants. Writing with Giulia Sonetti “At the heart of most eco-literature, if not all, is our relationship with nature, with land, either directly as individuals or through our industrial and societal progress, through energy, transport, communications and our built environment”

Many of the suggested eco-literacy genre authors noted in RESTORD are to be (re)published in a Penguin Green Ideas paperback series, including authors such as Aldo Leopold (Think Like a Mountain), EO Wilson (Every Species is a Masterpiece), Robin Wall Kimmerer (The Democracy of Species), Rachel Carson (Man’s War Against Nature), Naomi Klein (Hot Money) Wendell Berry (What I Stand for is What I Stand On) and Bill McKibben (An Idea Can Go Extinct) 

Also noted in respect of new books is “Design Studio Vol. 1: Everything Needs to Change: Architecture and the Climate Emergency”  published by RIBA, “‘Exploring architecture and the climate emergency, editors Sofie Pelsmakers (sustainable architect, educator and author of The Environmental Design Pocketbook) and Nick Newman (climate activist and Director of award-winning practice Studio Bark) are channelling the message of Greta Thunberg to inspire, enthuse and inform the next generation of architects. 

Nature

Most of the UK’s environmental protections stem from EU law and so could be changed as a result of Brexit. Greener UK has produced a Risk Tracker to show which policy areas are more secure, and which are most at risk. ‘Encouraging the UK government will go further than simply safeguarding protections, to take advantage of the great opportunity of restoring nature and our natural resources within a generation, as set out in the Greener UK vision’

Continuing the Regen-Notes nature and health theme, the BBC reported on the German trend of waldeinsamkeit, an archaic German term for the feeling of “forest loneliness”. Or more appropriately, the enlightened, sublime feeling that can come from being alone in the woods, seeking calm, fresh air and hermit-like solitude with the country’s restriction-free spruce, conifer, beech, oak and birch forests busier than ever. 

Over this spring and summer, Plantlife has four different Hunts with over 70 flowers to get to know. Starting with spring favourites, from first yellows of celandines and primroses, through to bluebells and cuckooflower 

Partners at the UP STRAW project have created a library of more than 400 publications dedicated to building with straw. The library, a free reference management tool that allows the user to manage bibliographical data and documents such as websites, videos, scientific articles, books and PDFs. 

Earthhour occurs on the 27th of March. No matter where you are in the world, you can make an impact and join for the Hour to speak up for nature! 

Carbon 

The Risk of Letting Big Finance Write Its Own Climate Rules – Bloomberg article explores the risk in how big finance interprets zero carbon – and it looks very different from stabilising and reducing CO2 to address and mitigate the climate and ecological crisis. 

Carbon offsets offer a fantasy of capitalism without crises from Robert Watt in The Conversation explores the far fetched world of carbon credit trading, where “actors all have conflicts of interest – developers want to sell more credits, while standards agencies and auditors want to gain market share. The resulting credits they certify are offered as a cheap means to appear green” 

Just Is

Georgia Elliott Smith launched a new campaign video for her legal challenge of the UK Government over incineration pollution and carbon emissions.Georgia Elliott-Smith @georgiaesHelp me fight the UK govt in the High Court on 14th & 15th April 2021, demanding #climatejustice and an end to incinerator pollution. Find out more at polluterspay.earth#climateaction #somethingintheair

March 9th 202124 Retweets34 Likes

Zoom Regenerative 

Zoom Regenerative 28 featured Louise Hamot exploring carbon in MEP based on her work, recently published in CIBSE Technical Memorandum 65: Embodied Carbon in building services, and insights from Slovakia with Marián Ontkóc on low or negative carbon building materials, crafts and tutoring.

Delighted that Zoom Regenerative 29, on the 23rd March will feature Eden Brukman sharing insights from her regenerative work with the City of San Fransisco and beyond. Equally delighted that ZR29 will also feature Freddie Catlow in Stockholm, sharing his journey in bamboo, “from one to boo”, that led to his business venture Planboo. Registration here.

The Zoom Regenerative Earthday special, a hybrid event in Sabden Lancashire, hosted by the wonderful Class of Your Own, in conjunction with RESTORE and Living Future Europe will be held on the 20th April. The full-day (2 pm-9 pm) session will feature RESTORE Ready presentations and discussions, local regenerative presentations with an educational theme and a series of peach kuchas on regenerative practice in NW England to create a Living Future Collaborative hub. Wow 

And finally, excited to announce the ZR Pollinator Tutorials are shaping up for the week of 3 May. Tutorials will explore the foundations and basics of leading-edge regenerative themes, including Mind the Regenerative Future; Regenerative Economics; Regenerative Collaborations and The Living Building Challenge that features so much in the ZR sessions.

Welcome to Regen Notes issue 4, a fortnightly newsletter of regenerative news, stories and more with a sideways focus on the built environment, curated by Martin Brown. Read more from this newsletter and subscribe to get Regen Notes to your inbox here

Economics

The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review, continues to get a lot of climate press coverage, but not that I have noticed within the built environment sector. As noted in RegenNotes 3, central to the Review, and to progress towards an economy that addresses the natural ecology is the inclusion of ecology as a core educational subject.

The UK is to set up green finance hubs in Leeds and London, as part of efforts to encourage lenders and insurers to invest in renewable energy and sustainable industry. Its mission will be to provide data and analytics to financial institutions to support their investment decisions. 

“Who would listen to Bill Gates, billionaire, on how to save the planet,” asks Bill Gates. His new book ‘How To Avoid A Climate Disaster’ is receiving a lot of media coverage. Gates focuses on two numbers 51billion and Zero. 51bn being the amount of co2 emitted annually and 0 the number we need to get to by 2050. Worth checking out is his interesting view on what he calls “the juggernaut of emissions generated by the global construction cement and steel industries” 

On which CNBC reported this week: “Cement giant turn to green hydrogen and carbon capture in efforts to curb emissions” A subsidiary of multinational building materials firm HeidelbergCement is working with researchers from Swansea University to install and operate a green hydrogen fuelled concrete production demonstration unit at a site in the UK.

Nature

An emerging and important approach to reconnection with nature is in granting natural features legal status. Amidst the US November 2020 elections, legal rights were granted to the Little Wekiva River, Orange County, Florida as having a “right to exist, flow, to be protected against pollution, and to maintain a healthy ecosystem.” 

This was an approach that I raised for discussion on a recent workshop session for the ‘“Symbiotisch Bouwen” in the Netherlands. (Whose aim is to demonstrate the application of symbiotic construction by designing and building an innovation pavilion at Kloosters). A question raised was that If nature is seen to be a stakeholder to projects, with legal status, how would Nature be represented, and who will represent, around the briefing, design, construction planning tables?

This approach popped up on the wonderful BBC OutofDoors programme/podcast in a conversation with Allison Phillips UNESCO Chair of Integration at Glasgow University. Allison started the interview with her mihi, (a Maori greeting, introducing yourself through connectivity with land, culture, ancestry and arrival) and explores how Maori land stewardship in New Zealand, led to the recognition of land having a legal personality, where respect for the land as a living growing entity should be taken into account. Although broadcast at 6:30am on Saturday mornings, OutOfDoors is a real early morning treat, it is available through podcasts. 

One successful organisation addressing the importance of nature within economics is Ecosia. “Planting forests, one search at a time”, Ecosia is a non-profit organisation that funnels any revenue that isn’t needed to cover its overheads, tax and marketing efforts towards tree planting initiatives. The company founded on green principles is responsible for less than 1% of search worldwide, compared to the whopping 91.39% market share held by Google. 

However … the company has planted almost 120 million trees to date, across 9,000 planting sites worldwide. One tree is planted for roughly every 45 searches made via Ecosia, at a current rate of 1.3 trees per second, suggesting five million searches are carried out every day using the service. 

Literacy 

The question remains how built environment economics will address and move to a regenerative economy, one that takes an “ecological world view in which nature is the model.” How will accountant and surveyor and educational institutions, courses and practices move to embrace a regenerative economic approach?

Many organisations and institutes have now declared climate and ecological emergencies, but as Scott Macaulay pointed out on Zoom Regen 26, emergencies don’t wait for the typical 3 or 5-year academic cycles – or for that matter the 3 or 5-year business planning cycles – they require immediate action. 

Scott also illustrated how poorly we understand climate and carbon – not surprising as we have a number of different labels, each with differing descriptions for carbon reduction, carbon neutral, carbon positive and negative and so on.

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