Notes: a year studying “Regenerative Economics”

In 2022 I completed a masters in Regenerative Economics at Schumacher College, Devon, UK. It was a one year programme with the possibility to do it all online, or partially online with a two week residential at the Dartington Estate for every one of the four modules. I did it all online as I needed to be present for the family, but I did manage to spend five days in Totnes in March and attend three days of lessons, meet the twenty other students and the teachers, catch up with friends and briefly with Satish Kumar, the founder of the college. The decision to follow the masters was an impulsive one: I read about it at the end of August 2021 in Resurgence magazine and decided within half an hour I was up for it, just in time for the September start.
I am still digesting all the material, but I want to share some of it here, partly to consolidate it in my mind, partly because it feels important to share it. This is the material that most struck me and that I processed the most, there is a lot left out, some I haven’t quite digested yet, it’s possible another student would highlight different things.

The first module was on Economy and Ecology. Coming back to the roots of the word “economy” [from the Greek Oikos: house and Nemein: to manage], how do we manage our household if we don’t know what our household is. As Satish loves to remind us, the science of the household is ecology [Greek: Oikos: house and Logos: learning about]. We need to understand our ecology in order to manage it properly. In “the Economics” Aristotle distinguished between economics (management of the household) and the much less noble chrematistics (the accumulation of wealth for its own sake). Our current understanding of economics has lost this distinction: economics has been reduced to exchanges of money and wealth accumulation, with no consideration for the household – people, trees, natural cycles…-.
The Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess came up with the expression of “deep ecology” in the second half of the 20th century: the notion that humans are part of an intricate web of life, that they’re not at the centre of it but part of it. His ideas inspired the businessman Douglas Tompkins, founder of the North Face and co-founder of Esprit, to buy 2.2mn acres of land in Argentina and Chili and donate them to the governments to be run as national parks.
Many of the sources we studied referred back to phenomenology, a branch of philosophy that originated with Goethe, where lived experience is the foundation of philosophical enquiry. Husserl, Hegel, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty were phenomenologists. Half of David Abram’s brilliant book “The spell of the sensuous”, on our deep connection with nature, is about phenomenology. To be honest, I switch off with phenomenology, much to my supervisor’s despair. I have a resistance to being intellectual about an experience whose purpose is to be embodied. I believe coming back to the heart and the body is what our current way of functioning lacks. I appreciate Schumacher College’s emphasis on experiential learning, such as the deep time walk, or systems constellations, or the social presencing exercises, or the daily minute of silence and check in. But I resonate with the practice a lot more than I do with a theoretical underpinning of such practices. Maybe I missed something?!

A revelation for me in this module was Otto Schamer’s “Theory U”, used in organisation management. Schamer is a German professor at MIT who analysed the capacity of 150 of organisations to react to change. He noticed that the most able ones were those where the leadership was able to listen deeply to everyone’s needs, grievances, longings, and was most able to allow change to happen organically as opposed to using a top down approach. He developed “Theory U” as the practice of “sensing” or “presencing”, ie being deeply aware of everyone’s perception of a situation, without censoring anything even if it feels uncomfortable (the downward line in the “U”), then in “presencing” what calls to happen to answer everyone’s expressed longings, anxieties, etc (the lower line in the “U”, or “going through the eye of the needle”), and then “emerging” with an outcome and enacting it (the second line of the “U”). This practice requires people to be in their hearts as much as their brains, to use emotional intelligence as much as processing analytical intelligence.

The biggest take-away from the masters was systems thinking and complexity theory. For the past three hundred years we have revelled in our capacity to perceive the world as a machine. We see our bodies as a machine, our economies as machines: we believe that if we act on one thing, we get a predictable effect and with lots of specialists in different parts of the various machine-like things in our lives, we can create a perfect life for all of us. The obvious and sad reality is that we haven’t created the perfect life for all of us, far from it.
Systems thinking takes us away from linear, reductive thinking, and into the wondrous world of complexity theory. It assumes we live in an incredibly complex world, that we cannot possibly wholly fathom, and cannot control. If a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can set off a tornado in Texas (as mathematician Edward Lorentz posited), then reliably predicting and controlling anything with our actions is impossible. Ouch. That seriously undermines all the principles of medicine, economics, management that tell us that if we can just perfect our understanding of the different parts of our body, of the economy, etc, and learn to micromanage them, we will eventually tweak our bodies, our countries, etc into being perfect, healthy, fully functional.

Operating in complex systems require very different skills from what we learn at school. It requires to be able to observe attentively, keep an open mind, look beyond the models we learned, and constantly be creative about what every situation calls for. It means that every situation is different and constantly evolving. In Dancing with Systems environmental scientist Donella Meadows gives pointers to operate in a complex world. She and the co-authors of the “Limits to growth” report presented at the 1971 Club of Rome were the first to look beyond GDP growth figures and ask whether constant growth in production and consumption made sense in a world of finite resources. She points to the importance of feedback loops so that operators know when an imbalance needs correcting. Following that line of thought, systems thinker and Buddhism scholar Joanna Macy was among the first to talk about the importance of making space for the grief and anger we feel at the destruction of species, the pollution, the desecrating of beautiful natural sites, as it is precisely this grief and anger that create the feedback loop necessary to prompt us into action to reverse it. She created “The Work That Reconnects” network in the 1970s, it now has branches around the world and facilitates workshops to empower people to bring about “the Great Turning”, the shift from the Industrial Growth Society to a life-sustaining civilization.

I have since come across Australian Aborigine academic Tyson Yunkaporta, his book, writings and podcasts offer much wisdom on complex systems and how to incorporate that wisdom in our lives.

American First Nation activist Pat Mccabe spoke with us for a couple of hours on zoom on an indigenous way of understanding how to be human. This is one that recognises the sovereignty of all beings, that asks how best to promote life and add beauty (as opposed to how to maximise profit).

We saw how American economist Elinor Ostrom received the Nobel prize in economics in 2009 for showing that groups of humans have successfully managed common resources without private ownership. She carried out her research in reaction to a piece called “the tragedy of the commons” that argued that man is essentially selfish, and is incapable of looking after common land harmoniously. She documented many examples where people managed natural resources in a sustainable way, without anyone particular opening them. An example is the Swiss irrigation canals in the Valais, called les bisses, they still exist and are great walking paths. She explains that 8 rules need to be followed for such common management to succeed, such as a clear defining of the boundaries, a mechanism to resolve disputes, etc.

We have commons in cyberspace, such open source software, or the Creative Commons.

In the same vein and in contradiction with the “survival of the fittest” paradigm we learn at school, Rutger Bregman writes about how humans are naturally kind to each other, as is shown in times of crises.

Schumacher alumni Daniel Christian Wahl was very generous with his time, also on zoom. His book “Designing Regenerative Cultures” encapsulates an idea that kept recurring throughout the masters: that any action necessarily needs to be embedded in individual communities, as opposed to macro changes imposed from the outside. We saw how globalisation brings efficiency, but localisation brings resilience, and the key is to re-establish a balance between the two.

The second module was on economic theory, it asked the question of whether green growth was sustainable and desirable, and suggested alternatives to neoliberal policies. Economic anthropologist Jackson Hickel (author of “Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World”) spoke to us from Barcelona, he argued that though Western economies were cleaner and there has been a decoupling between economic growth and CO2 emissions in the global north, this has been made possible because industries that are polluting and required cheap labour have been outsourced to the Global South. Also, cumulative CO2 is still substantially greater in the Global North, so though China is now the biggest emitter of CO2, America and Europe have contributed more the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere over time than China. Tim Jackson (author of “Prosperity without growth”) considers the social causes and implications of our consumerist societies and writes wryly that “People are persuaded to spend money we don’t have, on things we don’t need, to create impressions that won’t last, on people we don’t care about.” “The Spirit Level” by Wilkinson and Pickett uses thirty years of research to show that past a certain threshold of wealth, the more unequal a society, the more it is likely to display ill health, lack of community life, violence, drugs, obesity, mental illness, long working hours, big prison populations. This goes against the generally accepted idea that economic growth per se benefits everyone.

We had a debate on the validity of GDP growth as the main indicator of well being a country and considered alternatives such as the Human Development Index or Bhutan’s Gross national Happiness index, or the Sustainable Development index. We saw every indicator has its limits and is mainly useful as a way to compare different countries, which begged the question of whether comparisons were that relevant, and whether every country or community shouldn’t develop their own indicators to help monitor whatever matters to each of them. The inventor of GDP growth himself, Simon Kuznets (he came up with it during the American Great Depression), said it was a poor tool for policymaking. British economist Kate Raworth preconises to be growth agnostic, ie to focus on other things than GDP growth. She suggests the doughnut model, which enables us to see in a very concrete way how human needs are met such as education, access to clean water, safety, community, while also keeping track of the natural environment and areas of stress as result of human consumption, such as biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, air pollution… We spoke with someone who was working with the town of Amsterdam to apply the doughnut model to the town.
It is worth noting that the widely accepted Sustainable Development Goals proposed by the UN include in Goal number 8 “sustainable growth”: the idea that growth is indispensable is difficult to shake off.

A Basel-based economist spoke of “eco-feminism”, highlighting how the hours of care provided to look after children, the household, the sick, the aging relatives go unnoticed in the economy because they are unpaid, in spite of being as important in number of hours worked, and in the benefits provided.

In a world in flux the 3horizons framework helps with discerning what paradigms and ways of thinking and working are obsolete and dwindling, and which ones need to emerge and be given support to. For instance some argue that one H1 – a paradigm on the way out – is a patriarchal, mechanical, driven by the mind, top down, based on a story of separation and scarcity, power over others way of doing things, while the H3 – a new paradigm emerging- is one of complex systems, driven by the heart and intuition, of power with others rather than power over, based on a story of connection and abundance. We can still see elements of the old paradigm in many places, but elements of the new one are becoming more frequent and are gradually gaining acceptance and traction.

We can’t speak of economic theory without speaking of the role of the government and we looked at Mariana Mazzucato’s ideas on how government has and still can invest in science and innovation, and promote an economy for the common good.
We had a zoom call with Ann Pettifor, a feisty political economist who wrote “The case for a Green New Deal”, she explained how It derives its name from the “New deal” run by Roosevelt during the Great Depression, and proposes that governments takes the lead in investing in green technologies and decarbonisation, and promoting social equality.

We looked at currencies, and a few experiments of creating local currencies such as the Bristol Pound to encourage people to buy local products and services and to insulate the community using it from inflation and currency fluctuations (a local currency was successfully run in Wörgl, Austria during the years of hyperinflation, and some Swiss companies have been using the Wir for nearly one hundred years).

We looked at solidarity economy, with ownership structures such as cooperatives (Juliet Schor argued they didn’t bring about the radical change instigators could have wished for), managing land or resources as commons, sharing platforms (such as time share), the gift economy, as well as B corps, or organisations with a social and environmental purpose as well as making profit.
We came across Frederic Laloux’ book “Reinventing Organisations”, where he argues that self-actualised leaders, ie leaders with a higher consciousness, or a deep sense of service and purpose, can successfully steer their organisation to be in service to all their stake holders, and he gives several practical examples. The one that struck me the most is the Dutch Buurtzorg, now one of the largest healthcare organisation in Holland, it is completely decentralised and empowers the nurses to be health coaches to their patients. KPMG also found its costs were overall 40% lower than those of traditional organisations thanks to the reduced bureaucracy.

In Module 3, “regenerative Enterprises”, we looked at particular sectors and how they can be run according to regenerative principles.
We visited Marina Brown-O’Connell’s Apricot Centre near Totnes. She recently published “Designing Regenerative Food Systems”. The FAO recently wrote that smallholders (less than two acres of land) produce a third of the total world food, in spite of representing only 12% of all agricultural land. At the same time 80% of global agricultural land is taken up by livestock (grazing and growing fodder such as soya and corn), while meat only supplies 20% of our overall calories.
Regenerative farms are a land efficient way of producing food. One I’ve been following is la ferme biologique du Bec Hellouin in Normandy. I had hoped I could go WWOOFing there one day, but they are so successful they stopped their WWOFing programme and concentrate on research and training.
Duncan Law gave us a brilliant presentation on energy and convinced me that whatever house we next own need to be a passive house. I’m also driving a different car that consumes less petrol, and have cut down dramatically on flights!

Charmian Love of the Oxford University’s Saïd Business School looked at the potential for companies to be a force for good and how to accelerate the transition. She talked about “intrapreneurs”, or those people in companies who strive to bring change from within the system, often swimming against the tide. She spoke of Paul Polan, ex CEO of Unilever and his mission to be “Net Positive”, of Emmanuel Faber who facilitated the transition of 60% of Danone’s businesses to be B Corp certified, Yvon Chouinard’s Patagonia which gives 1% of its sales to the preservation and restoration of the natural environment and recently became owned 100% by a trust whose purpose is the preservation of the environment. Charmian suggested a first step for a company to amend its articles to state its allegiance to all stakeholders, not just shareholders,

We looked at participatory democracy and budget planning: citizens’ assemblies (such as Ireland’s decision to legalise abortion, and Taiwan’s gOv and vTaiwan), participatory budgeting and citizens’ reviews (where a small group of citizens discuss a project of law and submit their findings to the population before it votes).

We saw how Nature is increasingly being recognised as a sentient being, with agency and whose rights must be protected. In Ecuador and Bolivia the rights of Pachamama are enshrined in the constitution as much as the rights of any person. In New Zealand the Whanganui River was made a legal person who could defend its rights with human representatives.

In the same line of thought, future generations are also being given legal representation. In Wales the Future Generations Act protects the rights of our children, and their children, etc. Some infrastructure projects have been cancelled because the future generations commissioner successfully objected to them. Other countries with future generations commissioners include Israel, Hungary (though he/she was so efficient it scared other vested interests and the position was cancelled) and NZ.

The fourth module was on “changing the frame”
Anasuya Sengupta draw our attention to our blind spots, and how information comes predominantly from a small number of sources from a small number of countries, ignoring valid information from elsewhere. She urged us to always ask “who is missing” in any conversation.
Felipe Viveros described how an expansion of Mexico City airport was aborted after activists staged a campaign called “I prefer the lake”.
The Common Cause Handbook highlights how emphasising intrinsic values (such as the need for community, freedom, closeness to nature) are stronger warrants of environmental and social balance than promoting extrinsic values (such as wealth, status, power). We considered George Lakoff’s writings on how frames are the mental structure that allow humans to understand reality, and are sometimes taken to be reality. They structure our ideas and concepts, they shape how we reason, they even impact how we perceive and how we act.
We came across Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, who is called the “father of public relations” because he perfected the skill of manipulating public opinion, calling cigarettes “torches of freedom” for instance to encourage women to feel emancipated when they bought and smoked cigarettes.
In the same line of thought, Joseph Nye wrote in 1990 about “soft power”, about how the US could save itself expensive wars if it can win the war of the hearts and manipulate public opinion in the countries where it wants to have influence.
Rob Hopkins, the founder of the Transition Network and local to Totnes gave us a brilliant one day workshop. His emphasis was on the power and the need to imagine what we want. I personally experienced tears as I literally opened the door on the future I imagined – it was so beautiful-. We had learned (remembered?) how to live in tune with all the cycles of life – circadian, infradian, moon and sun cycles, breath cycles, following a yin and yang pendulum-, plants were part of our environments, whether in towns or not, we knew about rites of passage to accompany every phase of our lives and keep us connected to ourselves and our purpose, to each other and to our natural environment.
Ruth Potts, the course leader, spoke of her involvement in “acts of civil disobedience”, such as when she and colleagues stopped a plane repatriating illegal immigrants, or did a night long sit in at the Tate Modern to protest sponsorship from oil companies.

Many speakers advised us to follow a permaculture course – and not just to learn how to garden, to apply it in all areas of our lives-. A few of the permaculture principles mentioned by various speakers that have made me want to learn more: follow the energy – wherever you get the most traction, whether it’s a place that produces the healthiest plants, or a group of people who are the most responsive, or an idea that gets particularly positive feedback, that’s where our energy should go. Before doing anything, observe: whether a new piece of land we want to work on, or a new situation. When starting something, allow 80% of your energy to the design, and 20% to running it – if it’s well designed, the running should happen nearly effortlessly.

I enrolled in an MIT online course on u-lab with Otto Scharmer but didn’t get round to follow it yet.

What I want to explore next is awareness-based systems change.