Moving from Sustainability to Regenerative Design

Today I attended a presentation at the University of Pennsylvania Institute for Environmental Studies given by Keith Bowers of Biohabitats. This is part of a series of presentations provided by Department of Earth and Environmental Science. There is a permanent link to the left University of Penn IES.

Date: November 5, 2008
Time: NOON - 1:30 pm
Place: Carolyn Hoff Lynch Auditorium
On the Penn campus: Chemistry Building; 34 & Spruce St

The presentation description was:

"Do we want to sustain what we have, or shift to a new design paradigm that embraces a world where all our actions facilitate the regeneration of ecological systems, human spirit and human evolution? This new approach begins by understanding how systems of life work in each unique place, how our role in those systems can reinforce life sustaining properties and how we can create a 'riot of reciprocity'."

The presentation started with the current state of affairs on Earth and the need to start doing things differently. There were references to ecological foot prints, historical data of flood event increases, loss of biodiversity, and the increase in extinction events.

The presentation continued with descriptions of sustainability versus regenerative design and the need to move towards regenerative design. It was noted that there is a tradeoff between historical fidelity versus ecological integrity and that in reality we may not be able to go back to what once was however we might be able to go back to a reasonable baseline. Some of the trade criteria mentioned included resiliency, diversity, regenerative, adaptive, and integrity.

The need for this work was put into context by a reference to natural capital and charts that showed the benefits of various activities. The charts indicated that restoring marshes has one of the largest benefits. The economic value placed on restoration was developed by Costanza in 1997.

This all set the stage for what Keith and Biohabitats do for a living. They restore habitats using system engineering principals. Keith showed a brief glimpse of the process used in these efforts. The process considers the community, ecology, and economy. The process includes stakeholders with actions, the creation of a vision, and modeling. The creation of the vision is key to getting the effort on a success track and that vision comes from the stakeholders using a bumper sticker approach and slider exercises where the community responds to questions.

Once the process was described Keith proceeded to give various examples from across the United States of their work. The clients include companies, government, non-profits, and Universities. The end of the presentation had a wonderful visualization of a model that showed the effects of changing various model elements and its impact on the community, sustainability, and regeneration.