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Regenerative Economics - Towards Planetary And Human Flourishing
Education & Catastrophe 89
John Tan
February 25, 2024
Image credit: The RSA
In last week’s issue of Education & Catastrophe, I wrote about human skills in the age of AI and how jobs of the future will be about the heart. Human flourishing now and in the distant future must consider how AI is changing how we work and what we do. There’s one other major consideration in any discussion about human flourishing, and that is planetary health.
This week, we dive into regenerative economics and discuss how long-term economic thinking needs to, in the words of Roman Krznaric, “move towards a radically different guiding purpose to create a global economy that meets human needs within the biophysical means of the planet, generation after generation.”
Regenerative economics is premised on the idea that Earth is a living system which has been severely damaged by the pursuit of material wealth and economic growth over the last few centuries. Regenerative economics seeks to address the unsustainable nature of continuous growth in traditional economic models by applying nature's laws and patterns of systemic health to socioeconomic systems. The goal is to create a more sustainable, resilient, and mutually beneficial economic system that values the environment, society, and long-term well-being over short-term gains.
As Roman Krznaric pointed out in his book The Good Ancestor, neoliberalism, Keynesianism and Marxism - the three major economic models post World War II - all believe in endless economic growth as the means to human progress. It is this underlying faith in growth that poses the greatest challenge to the long-term future for humankind.
Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.
Donella Meadows, in her 1972 report, The Limits to Growth, argues that exponential growth within a finite system will ultimately lead to diminishing returns and potential collapse. Meadows, along with her coauthors, highlighted the interconnectedness of population growth, industrial output, resource depletion, pollution generation, and food production within a closed system. They emphasised the need for humanity to recognise and impose limits on growth to achieve a state of global equilibrium, ensuring sustainability and well-being for future generations. Meadows' work underscores the importance of transitioning towards a sustainable society that meets present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
For a new synthesis of equitable human well-being within a healthy biosphere to be on our horizon, regeneration has to become the social norm. And regeneration starts by recognizing the tragedies we create and by taking as existential for ourselves what is existential for humanity—less of talking about the challenges and more of living them to explore new responses.
The future needs to be liberated, rehumanized and regenerated for a second chance for humanity on Earth.
Doughnut Economics is a branch of regenerative economics that considers the 9 planetary boundaries that make up the ecological ceiling (the outer ring) and people's needs which are the social foundation for basic human well-being (the inner ring).
The goal is to reduce the shortfall in each of the twelve dimensions of the social foundation derived from internationally agreed minimum social standards, as identified by the world’s governments in the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015, while avoiding overshoot in any of the nine planetary boundaries. Unfortunately, humanity has already way overshot climate change, biodiversity loss, land conversion and nitrogen & phosphorous loading.
Image credit: Kate Raworth
Between social and planetary boundaries lies an environmentally safe and socially just space in which humanity can thrive.
The economic thinker David Korten proposes that we drop the money lens of the previous century and see the world through the living lens of 21st century instead.
Image credit: David Korten
Through the living lens of eco-nomics, we see a world of intelligent, interdependent, self-aware, choice-making beings interacting through their shared labor to create and maintain the conditions essential to their individual and mutual existence. The rewards, which feature material sufficiency and spiritual abundance for all, are of a fundamentally different nature.
In the Ecological Civilization of our future, money will surely have its place. But our primary lens will be one through which we see life in the fullness of its expression. Through that lens we can create maps to guide us to a world of healthy living people on a healthy living Earth.
Korten believes a viable human future will emerge from the following interconnected steps:
Acknowledge the limits of the regenerative capacities of Earth’s community of life.
Commit ourselves to the equitable sharing of what remains; and
Join in a shared commitment to restore Earth to full health while reconnecting us with one another and nature to secure a good life for all people for all generations to come.
Korten calls this Ecological Civilisation.
There are multiple branches of regenerative economics, most of which have their place in the canon of works about planetary health and human flourishing. The point is this - we can’t flourish if the planet is sick and dying. 2030 is often cited as the year beyond which the consequences of climate change become irreversible. We have to act now, and we have to act together.
References
Regeneration Economy - World Economic Forum
Regenerative Futures - RSA
A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow - TED Talk by Kate Raworth
Doughnut Economics - Kate Raworth
Ecological Civilisation - David Korten
Every week I spend between 15-25 hours reading and writing to produce this weekly newsletter. I do it for my own learning, to spread a message of hope, and as a call to arms to create the conditions for human flourishing.
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