Strategies for regenerative business

Abstract

Escalating ecological degeneration and mounting social challenges highlight the need to rethink the current way of doing business. Human and business activities rely on functioning social-ecological systems but tend to take these for granted. Extant research on business sustainability has acknowledged the relevance of sustainability concerns for business strategy and organizing. Yet, dominant conceptualizations of business sustainability remain focused on the organization and its business case, in the quest to find strategies that translate less harmful social and environmental practices into competitive advantages. Only few scholars have gone beyond such a commercial logic and adopted a systems approach to derive business strategies from the logic of social-ecological systems. In this article, we propose that taking a systems approach means to conceptualize business sustainability in terms of regenerative business, that is, businesses that enhance, and thrive through, the health of social-ecological systems in a co-evolutionary process. As our main contribution, we develop the restore-preserve-enhance scale for regenerative business strategies reflecting a continuum of strategies for regeneration. These strategies follow from two main principles and related criteria for a systems-based level of aspiration and an adaptive management approach to regeneration. By doing so, we fundamentally shift the focus away from a business logic to a systems logic. Importantly, we offer concrete strategies for organizations to contribute to life-supporting conditions in social-ecological systems.