Regenerating Geelong

The Project

A multi-stakeholder, multi-community, multi-organisational, multi-year (long term) program of applied research, ethical innovation, transformative and disruptive policy and practice for regenerating capitalism in Greater Geelong and the Great South Coast in Victoria (AUSTRALIA), for futures that are sustainable and just for all.[2]

The Challenge

Regenerative capitalism

Regenerative capitalism: from sustainable development, to sustainable futures, to regenerative futures.

Regenerative capitalism refers to business practices that restore and build rather than exploit and destroyChris Stokel-Walker However, sustainability, understood as merely mitigating harm, is a Band-Aid for broader issues with our planet. The reality is the way we do business remains harmful to the world’s long-term future. We continue living beyond our planet’s limitations, wrecking the habitat in which we expect to live for centuries to come. More radical change is needed, and regenerative capitalism could be the answer we’re looking for.

World Economic Forum, What is regenerative capitalism and why is it important?

Regenerative capitalism can also draw on, and inform, the work being undertaken in imagining regenerative agriculture and re-wilding.

Regenerative agriculture

Our MissionTo support Australian farmers in regenerating soil and landscapes, to build natural and social capital, and transform food and fibre systems. We want a future of: Healthy, regenerated soils and landscapes, Nutritious and abundant food, Productive and profitable food and fibre systems Resilient and connected communities Soils for Life (Australia)

https://soilsforlife.org.au/about-soils-for-life/our_purpose/

Re-wilding

Rebuild. Restore. Rebalance.Rewilding Australia is WWF-Australia’s newest plan of action in our mission to Regenerate Australia by returning missing faunal links. Australia is home to diverse ecosystems of unique flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. But threats in our environment have led to the sobering reality that Australia now has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world. To truly Regenerate Australia we need to move beyond just preventing further extinction and restore what we’ve lost.By using science and Indigenous Ecological Knowledge (IEK) to restore Australia’s ecosystems we have the opportunity to future-proof Australia against this extinction crisis. World Wildlife Fund. Rewind Australia

https://www.wwf.org.au/what-we-do/rewilding-australia#gs.t26qsd

Outcomes

To work with, for and alongside young people to re-imagine the education, training and employment systems, practices and knowledges that are fit-for-the-purpose of regenerating capitalism in these regions;

To develop collaborative partnerships to co-design the new, disruptive, transformative and ethical economic and livelihood models that can emerge from, and contribute to, the regeneration of capitalism in particular places in Greater Geelong and the Great South Coast.