“Regenerative” is the buzzword of today in agriculture, food, biology and even in finance.  To regenerate literally means to restore, renew and grow. Nature regenerates itself constantly with an ingenious and elegant brilliance we all admire. 

The question is can business follow nature’s brilliance?  And, will consumers care? And if so, will it lead to an economic benefit for people, planet and prosperity? 

We chose to ask these questions and more in our 2020 ReGen for the NextGen™ national survey. We asked over 1,500 shoppers aged 18 and older to tell us what they know about “regenerative” principles and a wider range of topics relating to how regeneration can positively affect their lives through their buying choices. The results are stunning.

For more than two decades, Whole Health Marketing has been tracking the trends of shoppers in the U.S., taking note of where they shop, how they shop and what issues are most important to them as shoppers. Whole Health Marketing has partnered with ReGenFriends™ to conduct this research.

As we harvest the bounty of our planet’s soils and seas we are unintentionally (or intentionally) reducing its productivity.

Half of the topsoil on the planet has been lost in the last 150 years. These impacts include compaction, loss of soil structure, nutrient degradation, and soil salinity. In contrast, living soils contain more organisms in a single tablespoon than all of humanity.

This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to healthy and productive soils.

Soil carbon not only stores carbon dioxide (CO2), but also offers other benefits—it acts as a chemical filter (with soil minerals) for clean water, reduces soil erosion, conserves water, provides microbial habitats and sources of long‐term slow‐release nutrients, and improves soil structure and productivity. Soil organic matter (SOM) can be stockpiled using numerous best management practices including sustainable forestry practices; no‐till and conservation tillage in cropped land; cover cropping; and forage, agro-forestry, wetland, and grassland management.

This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to carbon sequestration through agriculture and ranching.

For many consumers the primary drivers for food purchases are taste, quality, price and convenience. However, they still want more from their food suppliers. They want honesty and transparency. Consumers are increasingly interested in full transparency from manufacturers, brands and retailers. Moreover, they are interested in co-creating regenerative solutions with farmers, suppliers, brands and retailers so that they can actively contribute to net-positive solutions. From farm land to landfills they want the full story. With increased transparency comes intellectual property and the ability to fully differentiate from competitors.

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​This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to full transparency.

The Presidio Trust has partnered with James Beard award-winning chef Traci Des Jardins to offer catering. A native of Northern California, Traci Des Jardins has six restaurants in San Francisco, including three at the Presidio, in partnership with the Presidio Trust: The Commissary, Arguello, and TRANSIT. The Commissary has been selected as one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants in Northern California for two consecutive years. Her other award-winning restaurants include Jardinière, Mijita Cocina Mexicana, and Public House.

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Traci Des Jardins is a two-time James Beard award-winner and has earned a number of industry accolades. She sits on the board of La Cocina, a San Francisco based non-profit business incubator. She is a deeply committed activist and philanthropist working with hunger relief organizations such as Share Our Strength, Citymeals On-Wheels, and other non-profits such as amfAR.​

Global emissions have risen for three consecutive years marking another record high in 2019. While the gap between countries’ pledges and actions continues to grow, the world is further off course than ever from meeting the SDG goals of the Paris climate agreement. Changes in the climate have led to irreversible and catastrophic events experienced both locally and globally. 
 

Youth around the globe initiated the first ever global strike, as they marched in protest of climate change. 

Customers take comfort in the concept of sustainability as something familiar equated with doing less harm. However, they’re not satisfied with the current green/sustainable product offerings.
Is the sustainability movement sustaining the wrong thing: a broken system? How can regenerative be used as a complement and catalyst to creating something worthy of sustaining?

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This session explores the economic benefits that come from integrating sustainability into a regenerative net-positive decision platform.

The deleterious and pervasive environmental effects of textile production are alarming to those within the industry. To date, most of these horrors have been held close to the vest for fear that consumers own shock would negatively impact sales.

Today we are seeing incredible textile innovations: thread from mushrooms, bean-filled puffer jackets, wildflowers for insulation, leather from cactus, recovered fish nets into fishnet stockings, plastic bottles upcycled into high performance athletic wear, exchanging old clothing to be woven into something new are just a few of the many regenerative technologies happening today.

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The average consumer is now purchasing 60 percent more items of clothing compared to 2000, but each garment is kept half as long. If consumption continues at its current rate, we’ll need three times as many natural resources by 2050 compared to what we used in 2000. Yet 2019 was considered by many to be the year sustainable fashion went mainstream: brands like Nike signed the G7 Fashion Pact; Gucci went carbon neutral; social resale website Poshmark doubled its sellers’ revenues from $1B to $2B. Can the apparel industry implement regenerative practices to ensure sustainability isn’t just another fast fashion fad?

This session explores the economic benefits of a regenerative approach to apparel design, production and disposal.

Carbon is stored in the soil through a process called humification, in which carbon-based organic matter is converted into humus by a combination of saprotrophic fungi, bacteria, microbes and animals such as earthworms, nematodes, protozoa, and arthropods. Regenerative agriculture can store massive amounts of carbon in soil, therefore carbon sequestration provides one effective measurement for regenerative agriculture.

The benefits of regenerative business systems including regenerative agriculture are more complex than one measurable output; they’re entire ecosystems producing a net-positive impact. They are also inherently self-regulating. Companies large and small around the world are working on quantifying the regenerative practices they’re using so that they may promote their impact to customers.

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This session explores the economic benefits of a regenerative approach to standards, certifications and traceability.

Monoculture in business can be as destructive  as it is in nature.
 

There is clear evidence that companies with a higher proportion of women in decision-making roles continue to generate higher margins, greater profits, and better total return to shareholders. Moreover, diversity across both gender and culture similarly improves performance.

It is a little known fact that American scientist, inventor and women’s rights campaigner, Eunice Newton Foote first discovered the greenhouse effect in 1856. Foote’s seminal experiment was ingeniously homemade. One might wonder how the approach to global warming would have differed had she been fully recognized.

In biology, regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration, and growth that makes genomes, cells, organisms, and ecosystems resilient to natural fluctuations or events that cause disturbance or damage. Every species is capable of regeneration, from bacteria to humans. To renew means “to resume” after interruption. To restore means “to bring back” or reinstate. To grow means “to progress to maturity.”

How can we better support diversity in order to progress to maturity as a thriving business culture?

Gather to celebrate the day with ReGenFriends.

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The Presidio Trust has partnered with James Beard award-winning chef Traci Des Jardins to offer catering. A native of Northern California, Traci Des Jardins has six restaurants in San Francisco, including three at the Presidio, in partnership with the Presidio Trust: The Commissary, Arguello, and TRANSIT. The Commissary has been selected as one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants in Northern California for two consecutive years. Her other award-winning restaurants include Jardinière, Mijita Cocina Mexicana, and Public House.

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Traci Des Jardins is a two-time James Beard award-winner and has earned a number of industry accolades. She sits on the board of La Cocina, a San Francisco based non-profit business incubator. She is a deeply committed activist and philanthropist working with hunger relief organizations such as Share Our Strength, Citymeals On-Wheels, and other non-profits such as amfAR.​