r3.0 Phase Two: Hospicing the Extractive Economy while Birthing the Regenerative Economy
By Ralph Thurm & Bill Baue
Sustainability is like pregnancy: a woman is either pregnant — regenerating life through child-bearing — or not; thus, kind of pregnant is an oxymoron. So, too, with sustainability: we can either regenerate our vital resources sustainably, or not; more sustainable is a ubiquitous yet deceptive term, because it’s almost never applied to describe actual sustainability — it almost always describes the state of becoming less unsustainable. But less unsustainable is still, well… not sustainable.
In this sense, more sustainable is kind of like kind of pregnant — an illusory term that can’t help but mislead, seeing as it frames itself in a state of being (sustainable) that it explicitly lacks. And while some uses of the term rightly tie it to a specific goal and timeline for achieving actual sustainability, most uses of the term divorce it from any clear through-line to achieving sustainability. This dynamic creates what r3.0 Steering Board member Brendan Leblanc of EY calls “the illusion of progress” — which is “the only thing more dangerous than no progress at all.”
Revealing this illusion, and illuminating the actual progress needed to achieve sustainability (and beyond, to thriveability), is the core work of r3.0. This focus is particularly illustrated by our Second Phase, which we kicked off at our 6th International Conference in June in Rotterdam (where we rebranded ourselves from Reporting 3.0 to r3.0 — Redesign for Resilience & Regeneration — in recognition of our broader systemic scope). The Conference’s tagline was “implementing thriveable transformation” — so, too does Phase Two focus on implementing the ideas seeded in our First Phase, which constructed the foundation of our knowledge base — our “work ecosystem” as we call it (2016–2019) — after first validating the need for an organization focused on a transformative ambition level (2012–2015).
In the Partner Forum r3.0 convened on the day after the Conference, Conference Keynoter and Guest Facilitator Joe Brewer of the Capital Institute’s Regenerative Communities Network crystallized many of the ideas that were “floating in the air” at the Conference, and that encapsulate r3.0’s move into its Second Phase:
“We are experiencing two simultaneous processes that seem contradictory (but aren’t): we’re ‘hospicing’ the dying culture of extractive economies, and ‘birthing’ a new culture of regenerative economies. The growing regeneration movement has been “hiding in plain sight” for decades; the r3.0 community represents a node in this increasingly interwoven global network whose members are reclaiming autonomy and agency to nurture viability of our bioregions that scale out to regenerative societies on a planetary scale.”
The Conference: Pivoting to Bioregional Regeneration
This 6th International Conference represented a pivot point for r3.0 (beyond the name-change and launch of Phase Two) that Joe’s statement encompasses: the shift to birthing regenerative economies and societies on a bioregional basis. The most well-received speakers — Kate Raworth, Joe Brewer, Nora Bateson, Daniel Christian Wahl — all spotlighted place-based, regenerative economics as a means of shifting from “the necessary is impossible” to “the impossible is necessary” (to quote Tom Friedman). Not that r3.0 will abandon other meso-level leverage points — namely, corporate sectors and investment portfolios (after all, their traditional extractive approaches need hospicing in order to transform them into viable strategies) — but r3.0’s Second Phase opens up opportunities to complement top-down with bottom-up.
To get the ball rolling on this expanded approach, r3.0 Senior Director Bill Baue hosted a meeting in Springfield, Massachusetts with Stuart Cowan, Systems Convener for the Capital Institute’s Regenerative Communities Network, with folks representing bioregional initiatives from New England, as well as “weavers” who will interconnect the work of diverse bioregions globally and others.
Second Generation Blueprints: Building Next Floors on a Firm Foundation
The most prominent feature of r3.0’s Phase Two is the launch of a second generation of Blueprints. The first generation of Blueprints established the orientation of backcasting from the ideal of a Green, Inclusive and Open Economy, which we described through Principles and Desiderata in the Reporting Blueprint (the first in the series). Adding the other three first-generation Blueprints (on Accounting, Data,and New Business Models) established the four pillars of a foundation that serves as the “ground floor” for the transformation infrastructure r3.0 is building.
Phase Two introduces the second generation of Blueprints, which adds next floors to the home we’re building. The Sustainable Finance Blueprint and Value Cycles Blueprint are launching now (for release at the next r3.0 Conference in early Summer 2020), with the former seeking to shift degenerative to regenerative finance by integrating context-based sustainability into the mix, and the latter proposing an economic structure that creates system value by shifting from a linear, throughput model (Porter’s value chains) to a biomimetic approach that honors the natural cycles of resource regeneration.
A next round of Phase Two Blueprints, due out in 2021, will focus on the funding and programmatic power of Governments, Multilaterals & Foundations, calling for a shift from incrementalism to necessary transformation, as well as Education as an opportunity to shift from atomistic to holistic understanding and solutions.
Transformation Journey Programs: Breathing Life into the Blueprints
It is the fifth Blueprint — which introduces the Transformation Journey– that breathes life into the home we’re building. We translated this Blueprint into a Transformation Journey Program(TJP) that we piloted in two instances focused on sustainable finance (hosted by ING in Amsterdam and John Hancock / Manulife in Boston) and one broader “academy” style instance (hosted by THRIVE Institute at Erasmus University in Rotterdam). These pilots, which walked participants through the Blueprints with a goal of implementing their Recommendations, validated the “proof-of-concept” in more than one format, opening the door in Phase Two for a host of TJPs with flexible orientations — sectoral, thematic, geographic, etc… We already have one TJP on the books as Phase Two launches — a second Transformation Academy in Rotterdam, again hosted by THRIVE Institute, starting in early October.
One TJP format r3.0 is pursuing leverages the recent statement from the Business Roundtable (BRT), signed by 181 CEOs of US-based corporations, pledging to “redefine the purpose of a corporation to promote ‘an economy that serves all Americans’.” The pledge met both congratulatory and critical responses — Kevin Moss and Eliot Metzger of the World Resources Institute likened the BRT statement (which it characterized as “the corporate social responsibility plan of an earlier generation”) to “Apple announcing a new portable cassette player.”
Perhaps most pointedly, Winner Takes All author Anand Giridharadas launched a Twitter thread pointing to a raft of specific practices that would “promote an economy that serves all Americans” (that few if any signatory companies implement) inviting BRT CEOs to walk their talk. Seeing as the Transformation Journey Program is specifically designed to identify necessary transformations and nurture specific projects, programs, policies, and performance that implement such transformation, it seems a no-brainer for BRT companies to go through the TJP. What better way to demonstrate tangible implementation of this aspirational commitment?
Global Thresholds & Allocations Council: Setting Boundary Conditions for Vital Resources
The Global Thresholds & Allocations Council(GTAC), an idea that has been gestating for several years, is beginning to prepare for birth as r3.0 Phase Two unrolls. A generous funder has confirmed support for a feasibility study researching the necessary elements of GTAC, including its governance structure, secretariat establishment, council formation, and funding strategy. The first step of feasibility exploration leads to a second step of pre-launch preparation, setting the pieces in place to midwife GTAC into existence at the 7th International r3.0 Conference in June 2020.
In addition to leveraging new relationships, the GTAC will continue to build upon existing relationships. For example, r3.0 Senior Director Bill Baue recently attended the Founding Forum of the Flourishing Enterprise Institute, and set an intention to launch a Research Node focused on thresholds & allocations tapping members of r3.0’s Academic Alliance and beyond. Following the core r3.0 stategy of “scale-linking,” the GTAC would assess approaches that respect sustainability thresholds as allocated to multiple scales, tying the micro (organizational) and meso (sectoral, portfolio, and habitat) levels to the macro (ecological, social, and economic systems) levels.
Stuart Cowan of the Capital Institute welcomes this work: “I am delighted with the direction the work at r3.0 is taking around bioregional shares of planetary boundaries…” A host of other prominent figures have similarly endorsed GTAC in a Support Letter (we invite others to join in — please contact Bill and/or Ralph if you’re interested in adding your name).
Research Projects: Collaborations to Map Future Directions for Capitals & Indicators
As Phase One wound down, r3.0 introduced two collaborative research projects that lay out new pathways for how capital is defined (and deployed) and for how indicators measure sustainable development, both of which will come online in Phase Two.
- From Monocapitalism to Multicapitalism: Building on the seeds planted by Richard Howitt, former CEO of the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC), in his keynote at r3.0’s 5th International Conference announcing the collaboration, r3.0 is in the final stretch of producing a White Paper on the shift from monocapitalism to multicapitalism, integrating the carrying capacities of the capitals (as proposed by r3.0 Advocation Partner Mark McElroy when he introduced the concept in 2014). This White Paper, which is due out by end-of-year 2019, will be reviewed by a group of advisors including representatives from the Capitals Coalition, Capital Institute, Deloitte, MetaIntegral, Principles for Responsible Investing, Social Value International, and World Business Council for Sustainable Development, among others. r3.0 Web Magician Alexandra has created a landing page for this project with background resources here.
- From Incrementalist to Contextualized and Transformational Indicators: After attending the first Transformation Journey Program workshop at John Hancock in Boston, Ilcheong Yi of the United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) invited r3.0 to conduct research for its 4-year Sustainable Development Performance Indicators Project. The result is a report (due out in early Fall 2019) that proposes a Three-Tiered typology of sustainable development performance indicators: a first tier of incrementalist indicators; a second tier of contextualized (thresholds-based) indicators; and a third tier of transformational indicators. A second report is already planned proposing specific second tier indicators corresponding to a set of first tier indicators proposed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). This UNRISD / r3.0 collaboration also has a landing page on our Website here.
Phase Three: From Birth to Early Maturation
Returning to the metaphor from the start of this article, if we view Phase Two as the birth of r3.0 (after gestation as Reporting 3.0), we could view Phase Three (starting in 2022) as r3.0’s early maturation. At that point, the first generation of Blueprints will be a half-decade old and ready for updating — we even foresee the possibility of expanding a chapter from the Reporting Blueprint, where we defined the Green, Inclusive, and Open Economy through a set of Principles and Desiderata, into its own Blueprint. The Transformation Journey Blueprint and Transformation Journey Program will integrate relevant elements and recommendations of the second-generation Blueprints, and we imagine the TJP being implemented in many different formats, from sectoral to thematic to geographic focal points.
The GTAC will be well into its first round of formation, and the Research Projects will continue, with the likelihood of adding others. And the annual Conference will continue to serve a key role in “gathering the tribe” of Positive Mavericks in our Academic Alliance and Advocation Partner Program. We see our work as procreative, pursuing the pregnant promise of true sustainability and its regenerative potential to nurture life.
