The Future Is: Regenerative Business
In terms of a more conscious approach to doing business, regenerative business is the way to the future. Regenerative businesses give back ten times more to society and the planet than what they take from it. This helps restore health to individuals, communities, and the planet.
Cultivating and nurturing win-win solutions are not only what consumers want, but even huge corporations are becoming more savvy to the benefits of supporting “the greater good.” According to a study by ReGenFriends, nearly 80 percent of U.S. consumers prefer “regenerative” brands to “sustainable” brands. Most find the term “sustainable” way too passive.
NOW: Re-Oaking
What’s Fresh: We have lost much, and are losing more, of our most valuable tree species in the United States, due to disease and pests. Maker’s Mark is collecting more than 300 unique families of white oak from across the states to plant at its distillery, Star Hill Farm. Successive plantings over the next several years will result in the largest single white oak genetic repository in the USA.
How it changes the game: This will provide a foundation for research and tree improvement, addressing current and future threats to white oak trees themselves, the millions of forest acres they dominate, and white oak-dependent industries like Bourbon.
3 Action Steps for Brands:
- Plants, trees, and ecosystems are essential for our biodiversity and for the continuation of the human race. How can your company create new regenerative ecosystems?
- Reoxygenating our environment, with a focus on planting projects, provides a rich opportunity to do good in the local community.
- How is your business using your own natural resources in creating a greener vision for the future?
NOW: Regenerating Women’s Wealth
What’s Fresh: Overseas factories have long been in need of reform. Apolis Market Bags is one such company partnering with Saidpur Enterprises to create more wealth and well-being opportunities for women in the workplace.
How it changes the game: Give-back manufacturing that benefits women in society as a whole will expand exponentially in the next decade.
3 Action Steps for Brands:
- Customer interests are continuing to increase around where and how products are made.
- Make clear the ways in which your company genuinely cares. Outline a connection not to factory workers but to humans.
- Adopt the less-is-more mentality. Patient, profitable brand-building creates sustainability for many years to come.
NEXT: Regenerative Burials
What’s Emerging: The company Recompose is at the forefront of the “regenerative burial movement,” where we will upcycle our remains into usable soil, or even turn our ashes into diamonds. Soil created by Recompose will nurture growth on the same forest floor that inspired its creation, allowing us to give back to the earth that nourishes us all our lives.
How it creates the future: Regenerative Burials will become commonplace in the future.
3 Things to Prepare for:
- “Death care” will be broadly accepted and seen as a necessary process.
- Regenerative burials provide natural organic reduction in urban environments, where land is often scarce.
- The process of grieving will be transformed, with new protocols in the future.
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