Should we ditch sustainability?

It is time for designers to set our sights beyond sustainability and consider regeneration. Sustainability is an important concept in a time of widespread environmental destruction. It has made us aware that our planet’s resources are finite, and helped us envisage practices to sustain our current resources. But on its own it does not fix what is b... See more

Sustainability, at its core, is simply about making sure that what we use and how we use it today, doesn’t have negative impacts on current and future generations' ability to live prosperously on this planet.

In order to maintain a linear economic system of production, extraction, and waste that devalues inputs and takes limited responsibility for outputs, you have to reinforce these ‘devalues’ in society, and you do this by making young people conform through educative structures that perpetuate the linear system.

Regenerative design seeks to not merely do less harm when designing, but rather to put design to work as a positive force that restores, renews or revitalises. A concept that’s inherent in nature, regeneration should be the approach for how we interact with the planet.

I often see the emerging concept of regenerative tourism described as “leaving a place better than we found it.” In fact, the basic sentiment is widely shared even beyond tourism, in what Carol Sanford would call the “do good” paradigm.That’s nice, and necessary. But it’s also dangerous without further clarification. Picking up a single piece of li... See more

Sustainable living and regeneration can only be understood in this wider context. Not only is the persistence of an individual rooted in its own constant regeneration, but the entire eco- system depends on the antifragile absorption and adaptation that results from the constant and rapid turnover of its components.