Nature’s Blueprint: Regeneration as Business Practice
This is Part 4 of the Attuning with Nature Series.
In this final piece, I share Sacred Futures' two-pronged approach to creating regenerative business models through our research collaborations and hands-on innovation work. Discover how we're helping organizations bridge the gap between vision and practice, while actively seeding new ventures that demonstrate what's possible in a regenerative economy.
While headlines paint pictures of ecological collapse and systemic breakdown, a quieter revolution is taking root. Across the globe, visionary organizations are demonstrating that business can be a force for regeneration rather than extraction. At Sacred Futures, we're not just observing this transformation – we're actively cultivating the soil from which new business models can emerge and flourish.
Building Tomorrow's Economy Today
The path to a regenerative future requires both wisdom and proof. Like mycorrhizal networks in a forest, we need both deep connection and practical demonstration – showing what's possible while building the infrastructure that makes it achievable. This is why Sacred Futures approaches ecosystem building through two complementary streams: collaborative field research and direct business model innovation.
Collaborative Research & Field Building
Participation in research initiatives acts as light posts, illuminating paths already being forged by pioneering organizations. In 2023/2024, I was a senior researcher for Purpose Foundation, Common Trust, and One Project which resulted in "Assets in Common," a groundbreaking book of case studies of existing businesses and leaders creatively expressing shared ownership concepts and tools that offer blueprints for what is possible in a post-capitalism world. Through this project, I spoke with many innovating enterprises who understand the business value that comes with sharing resources to affect a more just economy.
"We read the chapter on us, our founders said it's probably one of the best captures of our organization that we've seen!" - Aaron Dawson, The Industrial Commons, a multi-stakeholder cooperative revitalizing textile manufacturing in Western North Carolina
Through strategic partnerships and deep documentation, we're helping build the evidence base for what is possible, seeding new concepts and collaborations waiting to blossom.
Sacred Futures Re-Imagineering: Transforming Business Models
Alongside our ecosystem building work, we've developed a unique approach to business model transformation. Our Regenerative Business Design coaching program creates protected space for leaders to reimagine their ventures through four essential lenses:
Beyond our coaching work, Sacred Futures also seeds new ventures illustrating these regenerative principles in action. These in-house initiatives serve as living laboratories, testing and refining approaches that can be adopted across our broader network.
An Invitation to Reimagine
The future of business isn't about incremental improvement – it's about fundamental transformation. Whether you're:
A purpose-driven founder seeking to align your business model with regenerative principles;
A small business leader ready to reimagine how your enterprise operates;
An organization interested in field-building together,
Sacred Futures offers both the vision and the practical pathways to help you create the future your heart knows is possible.
The polycrisis isn't our only horizon. Through careful attention to nature's patterns and bold reimagining of business fundamentals, we're helping build an economy that generates abundance for all life.
