The Regenerative Investing Framework

This Regenerative Investing Framework facilitates an investing practice that can bring business into regenerative relationship with its socio-economic-ecological context. 

Using Living-Systems Principles To Develop The Framework

Key to living systems is a metabolism-like activity in which a system takes in inputs, processes them according to its own internal characteristics creating internal adaptions, then sends out outputs thereby also affecting its context. This constant co-transformation with its context has been called the "breath of life" and is the general process of living. 

The Regenerative Investing Framework translates this "process of living" into a set of practice guidelines that can transform business into a living, sensing, adapting, co-creating, and responsive system.  

How do we translate this understanding of regenerative business into a set of practice guidelines?

What differentiates a regenerative business is its ability to continuously adapt and evolve in response to both internal forces and external influences - while maintaining its essential characteristics, and, leaving a healthy socio-economic-ecological context behind. We have translated this metabolism-like activity into three features, which together form the 'pillars' of our framework:

1. While every business has potential, when we view the business embedded within its context, we get an expanded view of its potential. This can be described as its 'way of becoming' within its context. A business' unique essence, when appropriately combined with its unique context, gives rise to its unique potential. Details can be found on the Realising Potential page. 

2. A business is embedded within its context through its interconnections.  The quality of those relationships will affect the quality of the business' outcomes.  The business can choose how to express itself in those relationships -- we call this its citizenship.  Details can be found on the Expressing Citizenship page. 

3. The ability to continuously adapt and evolve requires, in addition to the above two features, a specific set of regenerative capabilities.  These regenerative capabilities allow the business to sense, self-regulate, and tune itself to circumstances in such a way as to create thriving for itself and its context. Thus, the business achieves a 'way of being' that produces successful regenerative outcomes. More details are on the Developing Capabilities page. This forms the 3rd pillar of our Regenerative Investing framework. This pillar stand on its own, and also underlies the other two pillars.

These 3 pillars, grounded in complexity science, allow business to achieve regenerative outcomes within its socio-economic-ecological context.