Author Archives: vivrezerowaste

The deed is done! Thank you to all who supported my thesis work these last few years! My primary research—user testing the REGEN Nest card deck in digital formats—showed great promise in terms of this tool’s potential for teaching regenerative design and for furthering the goals of sustainability in higher eduction. Students and recent alumniContinue reading “THE REGENERATIVE END AND BEGINNING”

“It’s easier to be a dad this morning. It’s easier to tell your kids, ‘Character matters, being a good person matters,’…This is vindication for a lot of people who really have suffered…This is a big deal for us to get some peace…for a whole lot of people it’s a good day.” Environmental Justice advocate VanContinue reading “PRIMARY RESEARCH UNDERWAY”

Today, I found myself announcing to the class I am TAing for that I will be building a regenerative retreat center in the US to help sustainability professionals rejuvenate. One of my students had just presented on Leyla Acroraglu’s regenerative CO Project Farm (Creative Optimists Project Farm) in Portugal, and we were all chatting aboutContinue reading “REGENERATION OF YOU”

In revisiting my literature review, nearly a year after writing it, in light of personal hardships and the global COVID 19 pandemic, I find myself magnetically drawn to the nearly hidden concept of self-development through self-care that is a common but ironically underdeveloped thread in regenerative design theories and methodology. As I created the RegenerativeContinue reading “REGENERATIVE SELF-CARE PRIMARY RESEARCH”

After nearly a year of putting my regenerative higher education thesis on hold for work, other classes, teaching, and sustainability club pursuits, I am back at it. The next step in the thesis journey is primary research, something I have scoped about a dozen times since last fall, only to hit practical or motivational deadContinue reading “BACK AT IT”

This post is all about exposing my mental model for regenerative concepts and how to incubate regenerative societies in the Regenerative Nest. While working on my thesis literature review, I was collecting regenerative concepts, synthesizing them and finding overlap from many sources. My brain was constantly trying to organize how these concepts built on eachContinue reading “Regenerative Nest”

Evolution generates many levels of wholeness simultaneously, from the metabolic dance of a cell to the vast cycles maintaining the biosphere. These nested levels of integrity are sustained by their own characteristic patterns of health. By designing with nature, by working with these patterns of health, we may aspire to designs that are compatible withContinue reading “Regenerative Worldview”

Teaching Sustainability In order to learn how to best teach regenerative concepts I looked to how sustainability is taught at the undergraduate level (since regenerative practice is building upon the practices of sustainability) Many find merit in the ‘problem-based’ or ‘project based learning’ methods which involves hands-on learning to engage students (Brundiers & Wiek, 2013;Continue reading “Design for Regeneration”

When inspiration is seen as a reward rather than a prerequisite — we propel ourselves ahead. Mark Manson in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Many of us know from experience that we cannot wait around for inspiration to strike. We have to put in work and allow ourselves to be invested andContinue reading “Refocusing on Regenerative”

In my last post (Part I) we explored how regenerative agriculture and permaculture are leading the way in understanding the role of equity in regenerative practice and how equity is an essential part of cooperation. In this post we look at a few examples of how equity has been woven into existing regenerative projects. ImperfectContinue reading “Cultivation and Regenerative Equity Part II”