Every company and every person has an influence on the environment—and every organization and business leader plays a role in creating systems and processes to reduce the damage. But some businesses are going a step further—inventing ways to replenish finite resources and restore the ecosystems that support life, including ours. In other words, beyond doing no harm, they’re working to improve the planet. This is called regeneration.

To understand the kind of effort this work requires, let’s look at a major player in the mining industry, for few industries affect the natural world more. For thousands of years, people have taken valuable materials from the earth, leaving toxic desolation in their wake once a site is plundered. Now the world’s largest mining companies are increasingly recognizing the need to do more than pursue sustainable practices and clean up retired mines. They’re partnering with affected communities to restore closed mine sites, allowing them to heal and rejuvenate.

In 2021, one of the oldest and largest mining players, Rio Tinto, joined Apple, jewelry company Mejuri, and financier Paul Hastings to create Regeneration, an international restoration and remining social organization that converts mine waste into minerals, with the goal of turning degraded lands into ecological and community assets.

One aspect of the project: developing a membrane to sift through mining wastewater to separate and capture useful materials. The pilot project, in collaboration with SiTration, an MIT startup, is one of several efforts Rio Tinto is pursuing to not only mitigate the results of mining but to deliver new environmental benefits.

The minerals captured by the project are expected to aid in the deployment of wind, solar, and geothermal power as well as energy storage. This is a critical function, as the World Bank estimates that more than three billion tons of minerals will be needed to deploy the alternative energy sources required to reach a climate target of limiting global warming by less than 2°C. Remining waste from past mining can help meet this need, for example, by providing minerals (copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt) for wind turbine magnets and electric vehicle motors.

Rio Tinto’s regenerative attempt is one example of a new emphasis by established industrial giants, startups, scientific researchers, and governments on implementing business practices that not only reduce their harm to the environment but actually reverse that damage.

What is a Regenerative Business?

Regenerative practices restore the environmental and social systems we all depend on or improve the ability of these systems to better restore themselves.

As the World Economic Forum (WEF) explains, the goal of a regenerative business model is to create net-positive impacts on the environment, society, and economies in which it operates. Leaders of these businesses understand that economic and financial fitness is inseparable from human, societal, and environmental health.

Regenerative business models are often discussed as a component in the broader context of regenerative capitalism.

How Regenerative Business Fits into the Circular Economy

Regenerative business falls into a bigger context of circularity. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, the circular economy is based on three principles, driven by design:

• Eliminate waste and pollution.
• Circulate products and materials (at their highest value).
• Regenerate nature.

See related SAP Insights articles:

“The Circular Economy Goes Mainstream.” Circular economy business models aren’t just a theory. See how companies are improving performance and sustainability.

“Circular Economy: The Path to Sustainable Profitability.” Circular business models reuse everything.

“A Circular Path to Sustainability for Manufacturers.” Manufacturers are building business models that embrace circular economy principles in which they make goods once and customers reuse them.

Regenerative efforts are a principle of the circular economy, a system that eliminates waste and pollution and keeps materials in use (as products or as components or raw materials when no longer usable), according to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a nonprofit promoting such practices. Keeping products and materials in use requires less land for sourcing new raw materials; land that would otherwise be dedicated to material sourcing could instead be harnessed for renewable resources and managed to be regenerative.

Instead of a linear process—extract materials; make products; dispose of waste—a circular system is designed to prevent waste generation from the start and to yield the fields to regenerative practices.

This article highlights a number of initiatives that businesses have taken in their first steps toward being regenerative. These examples include sustainable agriculture, capturing and reusing atmospheric carbon, and social practices that increase equity and fairness for people. The hour is late, and the damage is unquestionably done. But these efforts provide hope that others will follow this path in the coming months and years to repair the earth and avert our collective existential crisis.

Beginning without a blueprint

The need for regenerative systems and practices is urgent. The Stockholm Resilience Centre reports that we already have breached six out of the nine planetary boundaries needed for life on Earth, with soaring levels of CO₂ concentration, declining integrity of our biosphere, and rapidly shrinking fresh water supplies.

This urgency makes typical sustainability efforts—focused on reducing the emissions, waste, and inequality intrinsic in our economic system—table stakes. What’s needed are systems that reverse damage, along with business operations that heal and regenerate the planet’s natural resources.

While creating processes that use sustainable, regenerative materials represents an accessible on-ramp for businesses to start becoming more regenerative, it’s now clear that systemic change is the only thing that will solve this existential problem.

Economists and other experts have been thinking about the changes necessary to make this happen. So-called “doughnut economics” is one example of a framework for systemic change. Kate Raworth, a regenerative economist at Oxford University who developed the idea, describes the “doughnut” as two concentric rings: a social foundation, to ensure that no one falls short on life’s essentials, and an ecological ceiling, to ensure that humanity does not tax the planet beyond the point of no return. As Raworth writes, “Between these two sets of boundaries lies a doughnut-shaped space that is both ecologically safe and socially just: a space in which humanity can thrive.”

Becoming part of the circular economy is useful on the journey to becoming a regenerative business. Circularity means enterprises reinvent their processes for acquiring materials and manufacturing products with those materials; then they dispose of the materials so that as much as possible is recovered as assets that they or another group can use. As with the general concept of sustainability, circularity is a necessary state to achieve for the future of business and the planet. These are early but critical days for the work involved, and progress is likely to be uneven for some time. For example, while the total amount of reused materials consumed by the global economy has increased, the share of reused materials has decreased from 9.1% in 2018 to 7.2% in 2023—a 21% drop over the course of five years, according to the Circular Economy Foundation.

From the soil to the sky: Examples of net positive business activities

Regenerative business activities run a wide gamut, as organizations innovate their processes to be net positive. A net positive company “improves well-being for everyone it impacts—every product, every operation, every region and country, and every stakeholder, including employees, suppliers, communities, customers, and even future generations and the planet itself,” as defined by former Unilever CEO Paul Polman and influential sustainable business expert Andrew Winston.

New net positive activities fit into a variety of loose buckets. Among them are the following.

Removing carbon from the air and repurposing it. The world faces a gargantuan task in removing carbon from the air. Organizations such as Climeworks and Air Company seek not only to remove carbon but to use it in productive new ways.

This is critical, given that, as Winston points out, the pathways to decarbonization outlined by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change include a massive amount of carbon sequestration in the latter half of the century. "According to the best science," Winston says, "even after we get to net zero globally, we'll need to take it out of the air for many years.... Most people don't realize we still need to do that. Everyone from startups to big oil companies are working on it, but the technologies are having a tiny impact so far.”

In response, some companies sell collected CO₂ —in the case of Climeworks, to greenhouses and carbonated beverage makers. Climeworks has located its first large carbon dioxide removal plant in Iceland. According to its Web site, the facility’s eight collector containers each have an annual capture capacity of 500 tons and can be operated and controlled from afar, with the required heat and electricity supplied by the Hellisheidi Geothermal Power Plant.

New York startup Air Company removes harmful CO₂ from the environment and converts it into carbon-negative consumer products, such as its own brands of vodka, perfume, and hand sanitizer, as well as industrial chemicals and even fuel for airliners. Air Company CEO Gregory Constantine aims not just to decarbonize the world but to repurpose CO₂ as an “endless resource.” Constantine has been quoted as saying, “We see a world where carbon dioxide can be part of our solution, not just the problem.”

Some researchers have expressed skepticism about this method. A report by the Climate Crisis Advisory Group, an independent group of academics, points out that the method “is extremely expensive in terms of energy and implementation requirements.” The report also acknowledges that there is a possibility that using captured CO₂ for synthetic aviation fuels, as Air Company is working to do, could help reduce these costs.

Using regenerative agriculture practices. Virtually every big-name consumer food company now uses regenerative agriculture practices, as pioneered by Unilever. These include no-till farming (to minimize soil disruption), crop diversification (to enable soil regeneration), and rotational grazing of cattle (to allow pasture regeneration). PepsiCo, for example, has launched a program to source crops from farms that use regenerative practices to build soil health and fertility in 60 countries. In 2022, Nestlé sourced 6.8% of its ingredients through regenerative farming methods, and it plans to increase this figure to 50% by 2030. Programs at Danone include regenerative dairy farm practices in France, the United States, and Mexico; in 2021, this reduced greenhouse gas emissions and sequestered carbon while fostering biodiversity. Coalitions such as the 170-member SAI Platform, which includes 170 companies from around the world, disseminate best practices to smaller farmers.

Consumer packaged goods giant Unilever, which became a regenerative champion in the 2010s during Polman’s time as CEO, uses technology to map the sourcing of key ingredients and materials, such as cocoa, to ensure far smaller carbon and environmental footprints. The Unilever Regenerative Agriculture Principles provide guidance on how to nourish the soil, capture carbon, and restore and regenerate the land.

Restoring the landscape and soil. Regenerative mining practices, such as Rio Tinto’s retired mine site restoration, are at one end of the spectrum; regenerative landscaping is at the other. Gaia Landscapes seeks not just to restore the environment in a sustainable manner but to remove carbon from the air and store it in the soil. Increasing organic matter by 1% in the top 12 inches of soil in a normal-sized backyard can remove one ton or more of CO₂ from the atmosphere, according to Gaia.

Employing circular business models. Dutch electronics company Fairphone designs every aspect of its product and staff systems to be less wasteful. The Fairphone is a smartphone designed so that users can repair it, enabling it to be used for a very long time and reducing the number of phones piling up in landfills. The company’s workers, from the mines to the factories, are paid fair wages. In 2023, the company identified four key impact areas to reshape the smartphone business model: extending the longevity of products, taking back waste for reuse and recycling, promoting the fair use of materials, and operating under fair labor practices in factories.

A KPMG analysis of the Fairphone 3 model confirmed progress in these areas, finding that the phone’s lifetime increased by three to five years and uses 50% recycled gold in its components. In addition, its polycarbonate plastic cover increases the recycled content of phone materials to an average of 40%; the company expects this to grow to 100%.

Extending regenerative practices to societal aspects. This applies to how the organization treats its employees and also how it interacts with and helps regenerate the communities where it operates. By designing products that last, reusing waste, and pledging fair materials use and labor practices, Fairphone is also an example of a company that seeks to consume less and to enable the communities where it does business to restore resources.

Societal aspects can—and should—mean focusing on employees. Winston notes there is far from clear agreement on what this might look like, but he says societal metrics such as paying a fair wage, promoting inclusion in the workforce, and providing employees healthcare are advancing. On a broader level, regenerative societal practices are driven by the recognition that employees are important stakeholders—just as important as investors. A group of academics is promoting a framework called the Regenerative Lens, by which these activities can be measured. According to the group’s paper, five key qualities are needed: an ecological worldview embodied in human action, mutualism, high diversity, agency for humans and non-humans to act regeneratively, and continuous reflexivity.

Steps on the path to regenerative business practices

Becoming a regenerative business requires a significant shift in mindset and practice. Here are the core areas that leaders must consider:

• Assert a clear regenerative vision and mission. Your CEO and board need to articulate how your business aims to contribute positively to society and the environment, beyond simply minimizing harm. This creates a guiding force for your regenerative journey.
• Set regenerative goals. Create measurable goals that reflect your commitment to creating a positive outcome. These can encompass environmental restoration, social equity, and economic well-being.
• Identify your stakeholders. Include employees, partners, customers, communities, and the environment in your definition of success. Consider their needs and how your business operations and products can create positive results for them.
• Analyze your effect on each system your business operates in. Assess how your business activities affect these systems, both positively and negatively. This can be done through tactics like mapping emissions across your supply chain or conducting a waste audit. Identify the areas where you can mitigate the most harm and enhance positive contributions.
• Create clear metrics. Define specific metrics to track your progress toward regeneration. These can be financial, social, and environmental in nature. Regularly monitor and evaluate.
• Practice transparency. Regularly communicate your progress, challenges, and lessons learned to your stakeholders.

With this vision in place, and practices designed to incorporate regenerative thinking and analysis into every corner of the business, you can start to implement changes that will make an important difference to both the planet and your company’s future.

Most people have become a bit numb to the calls for climate action. That’s understandable. But there’s no denying urgent action is needed now.

The quest for regenerative business processes

The move toward regeneration also involves implementing technology and revamping business processes to succeed. Along with organizations’ existing IT infrastructures, data and analytics stand to play a major role in at least three areas:

1. Monitoring key regulations, trends, and connected dots around the circular journey of material flows

Connect suppliers together in supply webs, including full traceability of environmental and human rights credentials. This includes aerial or satellite mapping of environmental hotspots through machine learning and identifying forest fires, loss of species, and rising ocean temperatures in specific areas. Toward this end, sensors can make the invisible visible, identifying environmental degradation and presenting opportunities for regeneration.

Business leaders can expect policymakers and regulators to move toward regenerative principles—for example, asking companies to measure and disclose how they are improving soils, becoming carbon-positive, improving nature through better land use, and cleaning up and putting back water. The European Union’s corporate sustainability reporting standards are one example of this in action.

2. Modeling risks to assess the results of changes in design, sourcing, manufacturing, operations, and shipping decisions

Risk modeling enables experiments with what-if scenarios and trade-offs. For example, the SPHERE framework for sustainable packaging from the World Business Council for Sustainable Development is a scorecard that enables businesses to assess and evaluate various packaging options based on their CO₂ impact, circularity metrics, use of hazardous chemicals, and environmental impact. Being able to predict the results of trade-offs is key, answering questions such as deciding the best path forward among several competing metrics, such as recycled content, and the carbon footprint of plastic compared with paper and aluminum. This kind of effort, while not regenerative by itself, illustrates the important sustainability work that can lay the foundation for future efforts—for example, by designing packaging that reuses materials and related processes to restore and regenerate landscapes.

3. Strengthening back-office systems

This enables the integration of circular business processes and, eventually, regenerative practices into existing business processes. A truly regenerative organization will incorporate data on current and potential new materials and their environmental impact, such as on soil, water, and carbon sequestration. This data—from both inside the organization and partners—will influence what we make and how we make it. While this scenario is futuristic, today’s enterprise resource planning systems show that artificial intelligence enhancements can offer suggestions for improvement.

New resources for regenerative business practices

Are you getting inspired by the work of top practitioners and wondering how to get started? Great. A growing set of resources will guide you on your way:

• The Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures is an international group of institutional investors and corporations offering guidance for organizations “to report and act on evolving nature-related dependencies, impacts, risks, and opportunities.” It includes metrics and targets to assess these risks and opportunities, integrating nature into decision-making. The idea is that by following the guidelines, companies can protect elements of nature that they depend on for their projects—and preserve their ability to do business in the future.
• The Science Based Targets Network, an initiative involving nongovernmental organizations, business associations, and consultancies, provides “measurable, actionable, and time-bound objectives” that allow companies to keep their activities within the limits that exist in the natural environment. Steps in the process include assessing a company’s biggest environmental impacts and where they occur; focusing on top actions to address those impacts; collecting data to measure progress against targets for those priorities; acting to avoid future negative impacts, reduce current impacts, and regenerate and restore ecosystems; and reporting progress to the public.
• The United Nations provides integrated water resources management information designed to safeguard existing supplies, including the use of data and technology to encourage, for example, water conservation.
• The Sustainable Hospitality Alliance seeks to create a prosperous and responsible hospitality sector that gives back to destinations more than it takes, through efficient resource use, minimizing pollution, and fair workplace practices, among other goals.
• Nonprofit Regeneration International has a network of more than 500 international partners and a growing number of alliances throughout the world, including in the United States, South Africa, India, Canada, Belize, Mexico, and Guatemala. It offers a host of resources, including book recommendations, videos, podcasts, online courses, how-tos, and printable resources.
• The Web site for Winston and Polman’s book, Net Positive, contains a readiness test to assess your organization’s fitness for the task of becoming net positive and online courses on the topic.
• In 2021, the UK established a sustainable farming initiative that includes a program to pay farmers a per-hectare premium “for actions to improve the health of their soil.”

The fate of the planet

Action is long overdue. Much damage is done. In the face of so much ongoing turmoil—disastrous weather events, wars, civil unrest, the pandemic—most people have become a bit numb to the calls for climate action. That’s understandable. But there’s no denying that urgent action is needed now.

The enterprises and projects spotlighted here demonstrate there are actions that enterprises can take to reinvent their processes and become regenerative businesses. It will take many more of us to join them if we want to build a sustainable future.

Companies can start this journey now by setting goals and measuring their performance against them, unleashing the power of their teams—first to reach net zero, then to become regenerative.