Regenerative Practice
It's a simple ambition, but a complex challenge to untangle.
Conventional sustainability approaches focus on mitigating impact – “do less harm”. Regenerative Design seeks to go beyond this, to actively heal our places, their ecosystems and communities. We are enabling the shift to development that gives back more than it takes - setting new goals of repair, renewal, and reintegration with living systems. This approach surpasses the concept of sustainability, envisioning a future where human and ecological systems are not only restored but have regained their inherent capacity for self-repair and resilience. Creating conditions conducive for all life to thrive.
We need to transform the built environment industry from being Degenerative by Default, to being Regenerative by Design. As designers we imagine better futures, give them form, and bring them into the world.
Planit has developed a design framework for action, enabling clients, collaborators and colleagues to transform the built environment industry into a force for good. Through a multi-year research and development programme, we’ve developed a tool to guide our work towards Regenerative Design. It enables us to understand, measure and communicate the interconnections between a complete spectrum of sustainability indicators. Composed of an ‘ecological ceiling’ and a ‘social foundation’, it structures design decisions to meet the needs of all people within the means of the living planet.
We approach ‘Regenerative Design’ not as a destination, but as a practice. It’s something we work at day after day, iteratively improving.
We are constantly horizon scanning, and sourcing new ideas from across the built environment industry and beyond.
The pace of change in the industry is fast as we seek answers to the urgent challenges of our time. We acknowledge the distance the industry has to travel, the innovation challenges it needs to overcome, and the culture shift necessary to move beyond sustainability. It’s no small task.
Our Purpose is to Design for all Life to Thrive in Balance. Our near-term Mission by 2028 to ensure every project we deliver has a measurable net-positive impact for all living things. The tool empowers us to understand project impacts across a complete spectrum of sustainability indicators and enable clients to achieve their sustainability ambitions.
Targets prompt us to ask, What would it take to get there?
Turning aspiration into achievement requires clear, tangible targets that both inspire ambition and demonstrate progress. Each dimension is supported by a robust suite of qualitative and quantitative metrics, forming the foundation for project-specific, measurable objectives that guide action and track performance.
Our Objectives
Our Regenerative Design Tool takes two fundamental imperatives of Kate Raworth’s pioneering ‘Doughnut Economics’ - respecting planetary boundaries, and supporting the social foundation - and builds upon these with four design objectives. These are...
The Tool provides a way to consider a place and a project from a whole-systems perspective, and maximise regenerative impact across a complete spectrum of sustainability dimensions.
The framework is composed of eight dimensions under the ecological ceiling, and a further eight dimensions within the Social Foundation. By identifying beneficial linkages between, we can reveal how interventions in in one dimension generate secondary benefits across others – creating reinforcing relationships that amplify impact. This interconnected approach builds a virtuous cycle, where each action strengthens and multiplies the effect of others.
Designed to be loose-fit and flexible, the tool can be used in a multitude of ways across design stages, and track project evolution towards ambitious sustainability objectives. This is one of the ways we commonly use the tool…
Standing up to the urgent challenges of today requires deep innovation in the way we create the places of tomorrow.
Let’s get to work.
In developing the tool, we’ve drawn inspiration and insight from the brilliant work of others who have blazed the trail before us, and those who are pioneering alongside us. We’re in deep gratitude to this open and collaborative ethos and culture – the regenerative movement doesn’t believe in copyrights, only in the right to copy. We’re all on the same urgent mission and we’ll get there faster, together.
We hope to enable and inspire others to work towards a regenerative future. Together, we can accelerate change.
If you’d like to partner with Planit’s Regenerative Practice, or book a demo to see how our approach could solve issues you’re encountering on a particular site.
Get in touch
