The second half of the Regenerative Design Policy Lab focused on collaborative group work. The full cohort self-organised around four live projects and key areas represented among them: the Greater London Authority’s London Plan, Watershed, Bristol, higher education, and national policy for regenerative design.
Some groups generated numerous insights through their inquiries, while others developed ideas for events, collaborations, and spaces where learning could emerge.
The following pages outline the aims, processes, outputs, outcomes, and relevant insights for each of the four working groups.
Group 1: Greater London Authority (GLA)
Aim
To investigate how we can move towards a more regenerative London Plan.
Process
We started by asking “What might regenerative policies look like in the GLA plan?” Shortly after, we realised that’s too big a task, so we decided to focus on one thing. Next we looked at how we might explore a model of embodied biodiversity policy, and how might we map the points of influence in the process of creating local policy? E.g. a London plan or a local plan. We looked at the process of doing this and considered what points of intervention and influence we have in that.
Next, we considered a theory of change, using 3 Horizons as a model. We asked ‘what are the outcomes you would need to have within a policy for it to achieve the change needed?’
This led us to create a regenerative assessment tool.
Outputs
A regenerative assessment tool. A way of breaking down for any project or plan or policy different elements that you might consider from a regenerative lens and map onto it where it sits from degenerative to sustainable to regenerative. Mapping current policy / regulation, best practice, future thinking, and your project.
A tool/framework like this is useful for:
- demonstrating best practice, showing a policy that exists and the impact it could have on different metrics
- gathering the evidence as well, to demonstrate why we need to change policy.
- which in turn are both useful for explaining to someone why I want to do something,
- (In local authorities there is a need for the evidence, and the support, and showing people what can be done, in order to actually enact the change in policy.)
- Standardising terms, language and literacy across industry
If we develop this in the future, each point will have definitions and metrics attached that evolve over time.
Insights / Learnings
Complexity is difficult to navigate and to hold in mind all the moving, relational parts.
Having a tool that helps to break a process down into elements and process/timelines/goals is useful.
We need to work at the level of mindset shift in policy making
Policies and their narrow specificity limits the impact and impact measurement that is possible, which makes it really hard to gather what the feedback loop and the inevitable impact of that policy can be. Focusing on mindset shift throughout all the decision making, and policymaking could lessen these limitations.
We need to grow literacy around regenerative design and practice in industryStandardising terminology and creating a common language around regenerative concepts, will help to establish a widely understood standard for what “regenerative” means across different aspects of the industry. Building this common understanding from the ground up in organisations could potentially reduce the need for top-down policies and create a “second literacy” around regenerative design and practice, as we have for climate literacy.
Designers play a unique role in the construction industry, as they are often in positions that see how things are interrelated.
There is a need to work with experts to fill in the gaps of the tool, and to be able to create a map that’s useful for creating a regenerative GLA.
With this work There is a need to be constantly zooming in and then back out
A starting point for this work might be the concrete industry.
A lot of concrete is produced in the UK. So we could look at the actual biodiversity impact, perhaps start to influence some better locations for that to be extracted from.
The process of mapping through a framework like this and the conflict and tensions that brings up, will be part of how you figure everything out.
Group 2: Watershed
Aim
To develop Watershed Wild and Generous further: developing a regenerative vision for the development of our building.
Outputs
We have shared some examples of regenerative design case studies to help us develop language that might work well in this project
We have thought about and put into practice how you might bring nature into decision making.
Inspired by a workshop approach created by Co-Lab Dudley, Watershed invited participants to bring our non-human kin in to the workshop. Each participant was randomly allocated a bird, plant or animal that might be found near Watershed and invited to consider these as their kin to hold lightly in mind while participating, and to consider their perspective while developing ideas.
We have held a workshop at Watershed to think about the project, the vision and the next steps. This featured people from across our communities and staff – as well as RDL regenerative practitioners.
Duncan Speakman and Uninvited Guests led a Future sounding workshop at the event. A visioning exercise for the future. An interactive experience, walking around, reflecting and imagining into the future, 5-80 years from now. A reflective discussion for all that participated. A sound based performance that incorporated everyone’s vision of the future.
Outcomes
Stronger focus on skills, materials, and collaboration.
Watershed will create a regenerative ensemble, to take a joint approach. This collaboration with other cultural sector organisations undertaking capital builds in the city will allow for a scale-able approach to regenerative materials sourcing and skills
Watershed is looking to raise grant funding to employ someone to distil and develop project management to make Wild and Generous Watershed come alive
Watershed will design and deliver a non-extractive community engagement process with the roofless communities using harbourside spaces. And will partner with organisations like Black South West Network to engage with the traumatic heritage of the harbourside and how we create welcoming and appropriate spaces going forward.
Learnings & insight
Regenerative practice can’t be done alone. Collaboration is needed for scale.
“You can’t be regenerative on your own and the skills and materials piece needs scale to work.”
Consider what regenerative looks like beyond Watershed, at every part of the process.
To be regenerative, wild and generous, Watershed must consider what this means in all the places and communities Watershed might affect through construction work too. It is important to consider where you make and where you take.
Consider who is and who isn’t present.
At the event, people in the group didn’t feel they could speak on behalf of other people. How might we create the safety needed for minority groups to feel able and want to participate in visioning a future?
Not everyone has the same privilege and ability to think about the future without it causing harm.
Thinking about the future is hard especially when you are from a minoritized background… This insight is important. Next steps are to think about how this might affect the black community in Bristol engage with the project, as there is obviously a painful legacy to the harbourside areas – and also how it might impact the unhoused people of the city centre.
Bringing in more, and different perspectives, is inviting in more complexity, and requires more patience.
Bringing in fresh perspectives of people outside of the particular industries created deeper levels of complexity. This type of regenerative approach to a brief, co-designing and being inclusive, takes patience. And is at odds with BAU. Exploring different perspectives allowed for various ways to address the brief, which lead to a regenerative brief that Watershed could act upon.
Role flexibility enabled wider exploration
Participants didn’t have defined roles in the conversation. This was unusual for many used to playing the role of engineer, architect, project manager etc. Reframing the discussion so that everyone contributes their skills without strict roles proved to be very productive
Group 3: Policy
Aims
To explore how to support transitional (H2+) ideas to inform policy change, by:
- Finding ways to influence governments and transform these ideas into actionable stewardship.
- Exploring different ways of engaging different types of people to influence policy, considering both top-down and bottom-up approaches.
- Identifying the limitations to change within the system, and to respond to these
Outcomes
This group explored these aims through their own projects and areas, regularly coming back together to reflect and give each other insight into different sectors and different viewpoints.
Below is a summary of each participant’s reflections and responses and outcomes in response to the aims above.
Zoe: How can I influence policy through my work with Architects Declare?
My Architects Declare Building Blocks journey has been shifting from an industry space to a parliamentary space. With this group’s insight, it has given me insight into how long it takes to have influence in those spaces. People are on a longer journey of relationship making and understanding. As someone involved in the daily grind of trying to change legislation, Emma has helped me to understand all these amazing different ideas and innovations that are going on.
Questions I am asking now:
- How might I translate some of these stories, work and amazing H2 visions that are starting to unfold with people in this room and many others?
- How can I capture stories that will resonate with parliamentarians, decision makers and policy makers, in order to persuade them that these are really important areas that we need to take forward?
Milly: How can citizens be stewards of their own resilience in their community?
The project I worked on is a place based pilot about adaptation against climate change, specifically with surface water flooding for a community. We’re looking at doing adaptation pathways and planning. Initially, I wanted to look at regenerative infrastructure design for improving current sustainable urban drainage. Through the course of this lab and conversations I’ve shifted to focus on stewardship. How can citizens be stewards of their own resilience in their community? If you’re looking at long-term resilience, especially for something like surface water, it’s a very case-based thing, you need to take stewardship from within. You can’t just dictate it from the outside.
Questions I am asking now:
- How might we enable communities into that decision-making process and planning?
- How might a role-playing exercise support future planning by offering a chance to consider all elements in decision making?
Emma: My role as a parliamentarian and regenerative practitioner
Through these conversations I’ve realised I can play a role in Parliament that translates the work of Regenerative Design Practitioners (such as those in the RDL) into the language and the processes, and use the levers that are available to Parliamentarians to try and change things. E.g. Ed’s work at grassroots level could become stories that can be told to parliamentarians about how you can build the grassroots up. Milly’s community stewarding work could demonstrate how we work with community better.
Questions I am asking now:
- What is my role in translating and bringing stories of regenerative practice and innovation at grassroots and community level to parliament so we can use some of the infrastructure available?
- How might I do a briefing on the built environment, on order to get those ideas started and to start debate in parliament?
- How might we introduce a new concept of cultural net gain in parliament?
- How do we amplify what’s already happening in the regenerative space?
Learnings & insight
Much time is required to influence government policies.
Translating innovative ideas and practices into actionable stewardship involves understanding complexity of context, the legislative process, relationship-building, and persistent advocacy.
There is a need to tell real stories that resonate with those shaping policy in order for change to become possible.
Translating technical and grassroots work into compelling narratives for parliamentarians, decision makers and policy makers is important in influencing their decisions about what to take forward.
Community stewardship and participation in planning is important to their resilience and adaptation
Transforming ideas into stewardship requires a bottom-up approach, where communities are actively included and involved in decision-making and taking responsibility for their own future.
Group 4: Education
Aims
To explore a regenerative approach to engineering education.
This has been a cross-cohort exploration. Bringing together members of Cohorts 1,2,3
Outputs / Outcomes
Mapping the landscape, to show the presence of, or to show potential for, bringing regenerative approaches into engineering education. The group looked at:
- Existing accreditation frameworks ( eg AHEP4) that recognise sustainability and environmental aspects but may not fully address regenerative approaches.
- Engineers Without Borders (EWB) and Engineering for One Planet (EfOP) as initiatives exploring ways to incorporate regenerative practices into engineering education.
Conclusion
The existing frameworks have some opportunities but not masses, and little appearance of regenerative education being cited. The EWB and EfOP have lots of opportunities but are not formally recognised yet.
Questions this raised:
- How do we influence AHEP4?
- How might we gain leverage and visibility for the work that Engineers Without Borders are doing and Engineers Beyond the Planet and others are doing?
- How do they sit and situate against these things which are already there and formalised by various bodies and pathways?
Further outcomes:
- James will join the Joint Board of Moderators committee to be able to influence this
- Three posts accepted for the Horizons and STEM Conference.. – Two of them are very regenerative and one of them is more around professional practice and perfection.
- Participating in the Transdisciplinary Engineering Conference. UCL London
- Regenerative Design Education Meet, a gathering together of practitioners across the UK. In the style of an unconference, or anti-conference, with no presentations, but instead running participatory activities to help people to think and behave differently.
Learnings
Look beyond engineering for collaboration opportunities with the intention of increasing collective impact
Expand beyond this conversational space in order to learn from those outside of engineering and the built environment. For example organisations like the Schumacher Institute and Black Mountains College hold similar goals and approaches when it comes to incorporating regenerative practices and sustainability principles into education.
Diversity of perspectives in collaboration has enriched ideas, outcomes and agency
This diversity of perspectives and collaboration from cross cohort group work has enriched the projects and outcomes, enabled the continued involvement and engagement from participants and allowed for level of flexibility and agency in choice of ongoing involvement