The Beginner’s Guide to Regenerative Living, Our Step Beyond Sustainable
Sometime ago, I made up my mind to live more sustainably. One of my first sustainable hurdles, was purchasing toothpaste. My goal was to choose a toothpaste both effective in cleaning my teeth and the most sustainable option for the Earth. While in the grocery store, I reviewed the toothpaste companies, packaging choices, and ingredients. After almost an hour of research on my phone, I finally chose a toothpaste, still uncertain of the ‘winner.’ I left the store frustrated because I wanted to live sustainably. However, I felt that choosing the most sustainable toothpaste was a woefully inadequate response to the current state of our Earth.
Let me clarify, our smaller everyday choices, like which toothpaste to buy? Should I stop using plastic straws? When should I switch to LED light bulbs? Aren’t all that small. Over the years, the seemingly minute everyday choices we have made, along with billions of other people, have resulted in many of our current ecological problems. Forests are voraciously frying, microplastics are seemingly everywhere, and multiple species are going extinct right under our noses.
A sustainable lifestyle gets us to a point where we are no longer harming Earth. However, sustainable living alone is NOT sufficient in addressing and fixing the ecological issues of our time. How about an alternative trajectory? Along with no longer harming Earth, what if we were to actively repair the damage done?
This is where Regenerative Living comes in, our step beyond Sustainable.
What is Regenerative Living?
Regenerative living is based on the concept of regeneration. Regeneration is when we are adapting together with nature, rejuvenating the health of Earth and us. Our actions leading up to regeneration, renews the health of the planet, and the health of human systems.
Indigenous Peoples’ Regenerative Cultures
The idea of adapting together with nature is not new. Indigenous peoples thrived in a variety of regenerative cultures for thousands of years prior to colonialization. In their local regions, indigenous peoples met their needs while working with and as a part of nature. Often, their actions benefited not only themselves but their local ecosystems. For instance, terra preta, is a kind of black soil that had been enriched by humans who added charred wood to the soil in places thousands of years ago.
Regenerative Agriculture and Design
An example of regeneration is in the application of agriculture. The objective of regenerative agriculture is to improve soil health, promote biodiversity, and enhance the ecosystem. By improving soil health, regenerative agriculture also has the potential to store carbon in the soil, this is called carbon sequestration. Carbon sequestration is important in mitigating climate change. Depending on the kind of farm there are several techniques used in regenerative agriculture.
Another application of regeneration is through regenerative design. Sustainability expert, Bill Reed, explains that regenerative design is a combination of the following 3 parts.
- Understanding goals of clients and how the goals may function in the natural patterns of place. Place is the local area the clients are in and includes both the community and ecosystem.
- Creating design based on the patterns and goals.
- Learning from feedback of local ecosystem, and adjusting accordingly.
Prior to reaching regenerative design, there is a necessary progression from our current practices. The steps of progression are Green, Sustainable, Restorative, and Reconciliatory. At each level there is improvement from current practices to regeneration. It is not until our actions advance from sustainable to the next step of restorative that Earth benefits from our actions.
For Regenerative Living, we’ll apply Bill Reed’s explanation of regenerative design. Here are the 3 Components of Regenerative Living.
3 Components of Regenerative Living
- Assess-Assess the strengths and needs of you and your local area, including your community and the local ecosystem.
- Act-Based on your assessment, take action working with nature.
- Adapt-Adapt to what you’ve learned from the feedback of nature, your community and yourself.
Below is an info graphic that summarizes Regenerative Living.
How to get started with Regenerative Living
1. Assess
Assess the needs and strengths of yourself and your local ecosystem. Assessment provides a foundation for our starting point.
Assess what you have.
Not only your physical belongings but your strengths as well.
Physical belongings: Take the time to go through what you already have. Often you will find you already have all that you need. If you need to declutter, I highly recommend the KonMari method of tidying up.
Strengths: With your strengths, what is all the Earthy goodness you are capable of? Could you get a garden growing in your yard, your friend’s yard and maybe the school yard? What could you create with your pile of unused goods? Would you be able to organize a street, park, creek, or lake revitalization?
Assess what your place has.
Now that you’ve figured out what you have, review what your home, your community, and what your local ecosystem provides you as well.
Your Home: Do you have a window sill beckoning a basil plant to sit close by? How much natural light comes into your home?
Your Community: What resources does your town have? Is there a local nursery? How about a farmer’s market? Does your neighbor have some gardening skills you could learn from or a compost bin you could contribute to? Could your friend help you fix your favorite shirt rather than discard it? Is there a community green space for a community garden?
Your Local Ecosystem: What kind of climate do you live in? What are the seasons like in your area? Which plants are native to your area and would require less maintenance? What kind of land and water resources are available to you?
Determine what your needs and wants are.
Do you need toothpaste? Could your light bulbs be replaced? Do you need an activity to get you out of the house? Do you want to learn a new skill?
Determine what your place needs and wants are.
Does your balcony look bare? Is there a patch of dirt in your backyard or neighborhood that could use some life? Does the established ecosystem have more room to grow into its surroundings?
2. Act
Choose where to begin.
Regenerative living can be applied into every aspect of our lives. Some actions may require more preparation and time, like starting a garden. While others, like composting, may not take as long to get going. Whatever you choose to start with, go with what makes you excited.
Set SMART goals.
SMART goals help make a large goal more manageable. They are a great tool to make a large goal of regenerating our entire planet into smaller chunks. Here is a quick break down of SMART goals. SMART goals is an acronym for a goal that includes the following 5 characteristics.
Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time bound.
One of my overall goals is to start a garden. For an early step in the process of starting a garden, the following is an example of a SMART goal.
SMART Goal: I will send 2 soil samples to my local agricultural office in the next 2 weeks.
Specific-Soil Sample to my local agricultural office.
Measurable-2 soil samples
Achievable-2 soil samples in 2 weeks, I got this. 😉
Relevant- Soil samples are a good starting point for gardens.
Time Bound-2 weeks
Research
Fortunately, we are not pioneers in regenerative living. There are a plethora of resources at our fingertips. Here are a few to get you started.
Green America along with Kiss the Ground is encouraging us to build Climate Victory Gardens that help regenerate the soil, provide fresh food, and store carbon. You can even add your Climate Victory Garden to the map of gardens from around the world.
EWG or Environmental Work Group is a fantastic resource for most products we use on a day to day basis. They provide health risk scores for almost all of the ingredients for common products from kitchen cleaners to our shampoo. They also have a plethora of resources for other environmental concerns.
Kiss the Ground is a non profit group out of California working to grow regenerative agriculture. They have a Free Purchasing Guide to help us be better Regenerative Consumers.
Speaking of purchasing products, check out Forest 500, to see how well, companies and financial institutions you may invest in, are doing to prevent deforestation.
Ecosystem Restoration Camps are just that, camps of people that help restore the local ecosystem. There are established camps all over the world, that you may be able to join. Learn how you may also work to get a camp started in your area.
Implement
Do as Nike, Just Do It. Your first, second, or eleventh attempt doesn’t have to be perfect. You won’t know what is possible if you don’t try. You Got This!
3. Adapt
Listen, Learn, and Adapt
Daniel Christian Wahl, an expert in regenerative development, explains that listening is an integral part of how indigenous peoples learn from nature. He advises those interested in building regenerative cultures to listen more. We need to listen more intently to the feedback from ourselves, community, and nature. Based on what we learn from listening and observing the effects of our actions, we can then adapt accordingly.
Repeat Steps as Necessary
Regenerative living is a steady work in progress. Change is constant in nature and requires that we evolve as well.
Common Questions/FAQ About Regenerative Living
What is the difference between sustainable living and regenerative living?
Sustainable living is a lifestyle where we are able to maintain our current state of resources and environmental health indefinitely. This is good because we are no longer harming Earth. On the other hand, with the existing ecological problems, sustainable living is inadequate. Regenerative living takes sustainable living a step further. Regenerative living is a lifestyle where we are actively revitalizing the health of our local ecosystem and of us, as we adapt with our needs and the needs of nature.
How can one person’s actions make any difference?
It can feel like there is no way our singular actions can make a difference. However, our individual actions as a whole society over time have led to the current damage done to Earth. In a similar manner our collective actions can have the complete opposite effect, repairing and regenerating our Earth.
Do I have to change everything I do?
It depends where you are starting from. This is a longer answer, so sit tight.
Starting with toothpaste as an example. I know I am harping on toothpaste but it is likely most of us use some form of it to clean our teeth regularly. The World Health Organization advises people to brush their teeth twice a day with fluoride-containing toothpaste. At the time of this post, referring to Environmental Work Group’s review of toothpaste, only 12 toothpaste products received their ‘EWG verified’ of the over 600 products.
EWG verified products meet these 3 requirements.
- Ingredients in the product are safe for you and Earth.
- The product ingredients are made transparent by the manufacturer, including fragrances.
- The product was made with good manufacturing practices.
Maybe you already have an awesome toothpaste that is not harmful to us, also provides benefits to our Earth, and made responsibly. If you do, please share with me ASAP.
Perhaps, you are an exemplar of living in such a way that every decision and action you make is benefitting yourself, community, and Earth. If so, get it! Also, please share with us your wisdom. If you are like me, you will likely have to make several changes. Some of these changes maybe more dramatic, like you are proving your green thumb potential you didn’t know you had. While others are simply switching to the regenerative toothpaste that checks off all the requirements.
What are 3 quick ways to get started with Regenerative Living?
- Compost your organic waste.
- If possible, support your local regenerative farmers.
- Waste less by working with the multitude of R’s.
The Last Thing You Need to Know about Regenerative Living
Earth didn’t get to this point all by itself. Hundreds of years of multiple human activities, both intentional and unintentional, led to our current state. Rather than continuing the abuse of nature, resulting in degeneration of our home, we get to regenerate Earth. We already have seen the potential of our regenerative impact around the world. Together, let’s regenerate a flourishing home for all.
Follow me as I learn and share with you here at LOELOH more about regenerative living. If you liked this post please share this with your friends. Feel free to leave questions or comments down below.
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Image credit for Featured Image from Top Left moving Clockwise: Natural scenery of river in southeast Asia, by Kritchanut, from Getty Images Pro. A Monarch Butterfly feeds on orange Butterfly Weed Flowers in the garden, by MelodyanneM, from Getty Images Pro. Dig garden, by Lukas, from Pexels. Ocean Near Mountain, by Robin Frankland from Pexels.