Regenerate!

• Principal investigators: Tobias Hahn and Maja Tampe
• Research group: Institute for Social Innovation (IIS)
• Funding body: MICINN-MCIU

About the project

Business activities play an important role in the ongoing degradation of the health of Earth´s ecosystems. The rise of concepts such as business sustainability over the last decades has not reversed this trend. One reason for this failure is that business sustainability still takes the business organization and its performance as the reference point. Calls to adopt a systems perspective to rethink business practices as if sustainability really mattered have rarely been heeded so far.

In this project, we will study the nascent development and adoption of regenerative business practices, i.e., business practices that enhance, and thrive through the health of social-ecological systems in a co-evolutionary process. In stark contrast to established approaches to business sustainability, regenerative business takes the health of social-ecological systems as the reference point.

Overall, the objective of this project is to generate better knowledge about the process and contingencies of the adoption of regenerative business practices. To achieve this objective and based on the concepts of social-ecological systems and polycentric governance, we will conduct two qualitive studies in the context of regenerative agriculture in Spain. In a longitudinal process study, we analyze the collaborative efforts of multiple actors to develop and establish regenerative agricultural business practices. This will offer insights into the collaborative dynamics within and across multiple organizations and actors that lead to the development of adaptive and regenerative practices. In a qualitative policy study, we address the regulatory boundary conditions of the adoption of regenerative business practices.

Following a polycentric governance approach, we will analyze regulatory efforts to foster regenerative agriculture at different levels (regional, national, supranational) and through different governance approaches (private as well as public governance). The project will generate insightful knowledge about nascent regenerative business practices that will be valuable for academics, practitioners, and policy makers. Most importantly, the project will generate a better understanding of the collaborative practices and governance frameworks that are likely to lead into systems-oriented, and therefore more sustainable, regenerative business practices in agriculture and beyond.