Table of Contents

Foreword v

Acknowledgments xi

Changing Our Minds xiii

The Future of Sustainability xix

PART ONE: Creating Regenerative Projects 1

Chapter 1: EVOLUTION 9
Premise: Every living system has inherent within it the possibility to move to new levelsof order, differentiation, and organization.
Principle: Design for evolution.

Chapter 2: UNDERSTANDING PLACE 33
Premise: Co-evolution among humans and natural systems can only be undertaken inspecific places, using approaches that are precisely fitted to them.
Principle: Partner with place.

Chapter 3: DISCOVERING COLLECTIVE VOCATION 61
Premise: The sustainability of a living system is tied directly to its beneficial integration into a larger system.
Principle: Call forth a collective vocation

Chapter 4: THE GUILDED AGE 81
Premise: Projects should be vehicles for catalyzing the cooperative enterprises required to enable evolution
Principle: Actualize stakeholder systems toward co-evolving mutualism.

PART TWO: Creating Regenerative Processes 103

Chapter 5: START FROM POTENTIAL 11
Premise: Potential comes from evolving the value-generating capacity of a system to make unique contributions to the evolution of larger systems.
Principle: Work from potential, not problems.

Chapter 6: VALUE-ADDING ROLES 135
Premise: The continuing health of living systems depends on each member living out its distinctive role.
Principle: Find your distinctive, value-adding roles.

Chapter 7: TRANSFORMATIONAL LEVERAGE 153
Premise: Small conscious and conscientious interventions in the right place can create beneficial, system-wide effects.
Principle: Leverage systemic regeneration by making nodal interventions.

Chapter 8: DEVELOPMENTAL WORK 177
Premise: A project can only create systemic benefit within a field of caring, co-creativity, and co-responsibility.
Principle: Design the design process to be developmental.

PART THREE: Becoming a Regenerative Change Agent 197

Chapter 9: SYSTEMS ACTUALIZING 20
Premise: The actualization of a self requires the simultaneous development of the systems of which it is a part.
Principle: Become a systems actualizer.

Epilogue 215

Further Reading 219

Index 223

About the Author

PAMELA MANG and BEN HAGGARD are founding members of Regenesis Group, a coalition of experienced design, land-use, planning, business, and development professionals who focus on regenerative design and development. Regenesis was founded on the belief that environmental problems are more cultural and psychological than technological, and works to forward Living Systems Thinking as a framework for breaking the stagnation and developing a symbiotic relationship between people and the places they design and inhabit.