As we prepare to launch our Floating Stories Lab, we are asked frequently, what is regeneration? We do our best with our knowledge thus far to give a macro overview on our REGENERATION page, highlighting that regenerative thinking puts planetary health and societal wellbeing at the forefront of our existence. Sustainability is a by-product on the path towards regeneration but not the end goal, and sadly has become a buzz word prone to greenwashing campaigns. Regenerative thinking, on the other hand, enables the ‘biological process of renewal that leads to a higher order or health, wealth, vitality and viability,' as Leen Gorissen explains in her book Natural Intelligence, that we kick off this list with below. We hope these five books make it to your reading or audio book list, and look forward to hearing your feedback so we can discuss together in our Voyage Virage Book Community.
Five books to get you started in regenerative thinking:
Natural Intelligence: Building the Future of Innovation on Millions of Years of Natural Intelligence, by Leen Gorissen
For those short on time or quite new to regeneration, we recommend getting started with Leen Gorrisen’s easy to read book Natural Intelligence. An easy dive into understanding how the natural world – of which we are inclusive – functions regeneratively, how this enables life ongoing, and how we can apply this to all aspects of human lives.
From the Publisher
Mushrooms make rain, whales cool the climate, termites build islands, foxes green the tundra, and plankton create clouds. In Natural Intelligence, Leen Gorissen, PhD in biology, shares the latest breakthrough insights from biology and makes a solid case for why NI, not AI, should be at the forefront of business innovation.
The book covers groundbreaking insights from the life sciences and how these change the way we look at change and innovation. It shares some of the most advanced thinking and novelties in bio-inspired innovation —covering disciplines like biomimicry, biophilia, permaculture, living systems thinking, nature-based solutions and regenerative design— and clusters these nature-inspired disciplines under the umbrella of NI because nature is the largest R&D project in history. Gazillions of field tests have led to designs that outclass any man-made design in terms of efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability, resiliency and endurance.
The book also illustrates that once you understand how life works, you will see that sustainability is the by-product of regeneration. Regeneration is a biological process of renewal that leads to a higher order or health, wealth, vitality and viability. Because in the long run, innovations will only last if they leave the world better off. NI therefore offers a whole new lens to look at innovation, organisation, development and design. It unlocks pathways to shift from degenerative to regenerative value creation —upgrading the world through nature-inspired innovation. Stay tuned to learn more about the way life works and how it might inspire you to rethink the nature of innovation.
* The book is print-on-demand, so it will only be printed when it is ordered.
English Title: Natural Intelligence: Building the Future of Innovation on Millions of Years of Natural Intelligence
Author: Leen Gorissen
Page Count: 196 Pages
Published: 2022
About the Author
Leen Gorissen, Ph.D. in Biology and founder of Centre4NI is specialized in ecology, transition science, regenerative design and bio-inspired innovation. From 2009 to 2017, she worked for the Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO Belgium) where she headed projects on sustainable forest management, circular economy and urban sustainability transitions. As an innovation biologist and transition process facilitator at Centre4NI, Leen helps organizations and businesses to innovate like nature. She has worked for a broad range of clients, including the European Environment Agency, CIMMYT, the Belgian, Swedish and Portuguese EPAs, Triodos, SAS, Port of Antwerp, School of Systems Change, Philips, BD, nexxworks, EDFLuminus, Courage, Business Leaders and the Portuguese Business Council for Sustainable Development. She organized bio-inspired innovation sessions in cities across the world including San Francisco, Oakland, Mexico-City, Perth, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Lisbon, Barcelona, Athens, Helsinki, Utrecht and Brussels and is the lead author of the book ‘Change the World City by City’ by LannooCampus (2018).
Flourish: Design Paradigms For Our Planetary Emergency, by Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn
Copyright: © Flourish Book 2021
I stumbled upon Flourish early into our regenerative thinking research journey and have since recommended it to many in our network, particularly the companies we consult with on mapping regenerative business frameworks. Packed with case studies, it is an informative follow-on from Natural Intelligence for those wanting to explore regenerative solutions for building, infrastructure and community design in more depth. Flourish left me feeling hopeful and motivated.
Chapters overview
Chapter 1: Possibilism: evidence, uncertainty and agency
Chapter 2: Co-evolution as nature: stewardship and living systems
Chapter 3: A longer now: deep, cyclical time and holarchic progress
Chapter 4: Symbiogenesis: mutualism, citizen-activism and public luxury
Chapter 5: Planetary health: qualitative development, living metrics and flows
From the Publisher
What will it take to restore balance to our world? How can we repair our devastated environments, and secure future generations’ survival? And what’s the key to unlock the mindset shift to enable truly regenerative transformation?
Flourish reaches beyond ‘sustainability’ to explore ‘regenerative’ practice, what it really means, and how we can get there together.
Looking deeply into the web of life that created and supports us, Flourish draws inspiration from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives. Michael Pawlyn and Sarah Ichioka propose a bold set of regenerative principles to transform how we design, make and manage our buildings, infrastructure and communities.
Whether you’re a built environment professional or client, an activist or a policymaker, Flourish offers you an urgent invitation to inhabit a new array of possibilities. We can build a thriving future, together.
Covid-19 is a crucial point in the world’s fight against climate change. As societies chart their recovery from the pandemic, they have a critical decision to make: do they succumb to the worst of “business as usual” or can they mark out and follow a bright new path together?
Flourish: Design Paradigms for Our Planetary Emergency, argues that humanity’s best chance of a positive future lies not with looking beyond biology, as transhumanists advocate, or in retreating from civilization, as some deep ecologists propose. Rather, the answers are to be found in nature, where we will learn (or-re-learn) the perspectives and tools we need to support the flourishing of all life, for all time.
By looking deeply into the web of life that created and supported us, and drawing inspiration from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives, Ichioka and Pawlyn propose five paradigm shifts that would transform how we construct, design and manage the built environment, and our journey towards planetary health. These include:
moving beyond sustainable design towards regenerative design
‘re-patterning’ anthropocentric modes of thinking in architecture
envisioning cities as sites for interbeing and action, rather than consumption.
Notably, these ideas are based on transcending and including, rather than opposing and dismissing previous paradigms. Each key shift is accompanied by illustrative graphics and examples of how these essential shifts are more than possible, with existing or near-term methods and technologies.
Flourish offers a fresh and compelling argument from two leading urbanists and architects, and a critical yet imaginative approach for how all of us - not just humans - can thrive in a time of intense urban growth.
More than a manual on how to make the best out of our narrow window of opportunity, Flourish is an invitation to imagine a different array of possibilities and a call to action to move towards a truly regenerative and cooperative way of life.
English Title: Flourish: Design Paradigms For Our Planetary Emergency
Authors: Sarah Ichioka and Michael Pawlyn
Page Count: 175 Pages
Publisher: Triarchy Press
Published: 2021
About the Authors
Sarah Ichioka is an urbanist, curator and writer. Connecting cities, culture and ecology, she’s been recognized as a World Cities Summit Young Leader, and one of the Global Public Interest Design 100. She is founding director of Singapore-based strategic consultancy Desire Lines.
Michael Pawlyn is an architect, biomimicry expert, and a co-initiator of the global movement Architects Declare Climate and Biodiversity Emergency. His TED talk has been viewed over 2.1 million times. He is founding director of London-based Exploration Architecture.
Read the full review by Prashant Vaze in Resurgence & Ecologist Magazine HERE.
Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Recommended to me during the Covid-19 pandemic, I devoured every page of Braiding Sweetgrass, adoring Robin Wall Kimmerer’s beautiful prose. Weaving together the importance of indigenous science and nature’s intelligence as necessary for humans to understand how to live in reciprocity with the rest of the living world, Robin Wall Kimmerer brings each page to life with ease, leaving a lasting impact that prompted me to more frequently question why regenerative living and making a positive impact on our planet is not the dominant status quo for all cultures, and what we can do to make it front and center of all human lives.
From the Publisher
As a botanist, Robin Wall Kimmerer has been trained to ask questions of nature with the tools of science. As a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, she embraces the notion that plants and animals are our oldest teachers. In Braiding Sweetgrass, Kimmerer brings these two ways of knowledge together.
Drawing on her life as an indigenous scientist, a mother, and a woman, Kimmerer shows how other living beings - asters and goldenrod, strawberries and squash, salamanders, algae, and sweetgrass - offer us gifts and lessons, even if we've forgotten how to hear their voices. In a rich braid of reflections that range from the creation of Turtle Island to the forces that threaten its flourishing today, she circles toward a central argument: that the awakening of a wider ecological consciousness requires the acknowledgment and celebration of our reciprocal relationship with the rest of the living world. For only when we can hear the languages of other beings will we be capable of understanding the generosity of the earth, and learn to give our own gifts in return.
English Title: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teaching of Plants
Authors: Robin Wall Kimmerer
Page Count: 400 Pages
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2020
About the Author
Robin Wall Kimmerer is a mother, scientist, decorated professor, and enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. She lives in Syracuse, New York, where she is a SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor of Environmental Biology, and the founder and director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment.
Sand Talk, by Tyson Yunkaporta
If there was one seminal book that reached my hands during the first French lockdown, it was Sand Talk, by Tyson Yunkaporta. It came urgently recommended to me by a mentor, co-collaborator, producer and friend called Anne, and so I ordered it hastily and got stuck in whilst spending my work-free days lying around the practice permaculture garden Remy and I had constructed on my in-laws’ property. Spreading a blanket atop the wildflowers and grasses that had sprung up since we’d begun gently tending the land, I soaked up every page of Sand Talk, and when I was done, I re-read it immediately, this time with sticky notes.
My stand-alone blog post for Sand Talk was published in April, you can read it HERE.
*Be sure to keep a look out for my upcoming review of Tyson’s new book being released in October, Right Story Wrong Story, of which I have been generously given a pre-release copy from the publisher to read currently.
Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth, by Charles Massy
How this title fell into my hands several years ago I strain to remember, but the impact Charles Massy’s journey of discovery from degenerative to regenerative agriculture in my home country, Australia, left a lasting stamp. It is no secret that the dominant agricultural and food systems on our planet are extremely degenerative, contributing to climate change and jeopardizing the health and survival of current and future generations. Charles Massy shows us how we can turn things around, regenerating the earth for the wellbeing of us all.
From the Publisher
In Call of the Reed Warbler, Charles Massy explores regenerative agriculture and the vital connection between our soil and our health.
It is the story of how a grassroots revolution—a true underground insurgency—can save the planet, help reduce and reverse climate change, and build healthy people and healthy communities, pivoting significantly on our relationship with growing and consuming food.
Using his personal experience as a touchstone—from an unknowing, chemical-using farmer with dead soils to a radical ecologist farmer carefully regenerating a 2000-hectare property to a state of natural health—Massy tells the real story behind industrial agriculture and the global profit-obsessed corporations driving it. With evocative stories, he shows how other innovative and courageous farmers are finding a new way.
At stake is not only a revolution in human health and in our communities, but the very survival of the planet. For farmers, backyard gardeners, food buyers, health workers, policy makers, and public leaders alike, Call of the Reed Warbler offers a tangible path forward and a powerful and moving paean of hope.
It’s not too late to regenerate the earth. Call of the Reed Warbler shows the way forward for the future of our food supply, our planet, and our health.
English Title: Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture, A New Earth
Authors: Charles Massy
Page Count: 528 Pages
Publisher: Chelsea Green Publishing
Published: 2018
About the Author
Charles Massy gained a Bachelor of Science at Australian National University (ANU) in 1976 before going farming for 35 years and developing the prominent Merino sheep stud “Severn Park”. Concern at ongoing land degradation and humanity’s sustainability challenge led him to return to ANU in 2009 to undertake a PhD in Human Ecology. Charles was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for his service as chair and director of a number of research organizations and statutory wool boards. He has also served on national and international review panels in sheep and wool research and development and genomics. Charles has authored several books on the Australian sheep industry, the most recent being the widely acclaimed Breaking the Sheep’s Back, which was short-listed for the Prime Minister’s Australian Literary Awards in Australian History in 2012.
Read a good book on regeneration? Let us know in the comments!
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