Read an Excerpt

Introduction: The Regenerative Era

This is a book about business, about how to do business more thoughtfully, consciously, and equitably. In this increasingly divisive political and economic landscape, it’s become easy to point at what’s wrong with the world. Yet, in my journalism over the past decade, I’ve tried to focus on solutions: here’s the problem, but here’s a potential solution. That’s what this book is, an exploration of what’s possible, a smattering of stories from around the world that are held by one common thread: a regenerative approach to business.

It’s not a new idea, rather one that’s evolved. When I began my career, I started writing about social enterprise, the concept that business can have a social (or environmental) cause. It was a term that was coming into our everyday lexicon. There was a flock of people, asking is this the sole purpose of business — to make money for a select few at the top? Though there had been talk about the shortcomings of our capitalistic system, these social entrepreneurs were operating rogue, building nimble institutions, and often so deeply entrenched in the problems they were trying to solve that they were not known to the public.

That changed in 2006 when Dr. Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh won the Nobel Peace Prize for Grameen Bank, a microfinance institution, which gave loans to individuals and small businesses that traditional finance had deemed unreliable and glossed over. He then went on to argue for social business— a term that challenged businesses’ profit maximization. Instead, he argued that business should have earnings and profits, but those need to funnel back into the business itself and serve a greater purpose. All of a sudden, media started covering this convergence of philanthropy, business, and finance more closely. Yunus joked that he had been talking about these concepts for decades since he’d been building Grameen in the 1970s. But these ideas had fallen on deaf ears— that is, until he won a Nobel Peace Prize.

As humans, it seems that we always need a wake-up alarm: if someone famous says it, we all listen. Or if we hit rock bottom, we realize we went astray. Yet, so much of the injustices and damage we see in the world today is not a recent development. Remember the Disney movie Wall-E which came out in 2008 and was conceived long before then? A lonely robot cleaning up mounds of junk, courtesy of our obsessive consumption as a species. That was over a decade ago. The alarm bells were ringing then, and are still ringing.

As I write this book in summer, it couldn’t be more relevant: Los Angeles is hitting 110 degrees Fahrenheit today. The hum of ACs has become a daily backdrop. Some areas are surpassing that even, hitting 115 degrees in urban spaces, not the desert. Every day it seems that we’re breaking new records; news articles keep using the term “apocalyptic” to describe the changes around us.

Unfortunately, it’s not just my corner of the world. England is seeing a heatwave that’s turned the idyllic green pastures into dry, brown rolling hills similar to those here in Southern California. Norwegians are being advised not to barbeque in the 90-degree weather in their forests (out of fear that some “inexperienced” folks may leave their portable BBQs in the forest, causing fires). In Northern Africa, an area familiar with heat, the temperatures are surpassing 120 degrees Fahrenheit — too hot even for locals to continue with their work.

There is something to be said about this change. Whether you’re a believer of climate change or not, whether you argue that the Earth has natural swings in its weather patterns, it’s hard to negate the reality that we, as humans, are not helping the situation. We’re adding pollution and waste into the Earth’s system daily. Apparently, only 13 percent of the oceans are not affected by our trash, namely plastics. That plastic has entered our digestive system; yes, we’re excreting plastic. And all this waste for what? Stuff. Stuff that supposedly makes our lives better, easier, and faster.

But are we happier? Not necessarily. We have offset the balance. Just like our bodies rely on homeostasis, the Earth does too. And many would argue, the “stuff” is not making us a happier species. Rather we’re imbalanced and struggling to find a solution. Companies are looking to connect with a younger generation that’s after purpose. Surely, there must be a greater meaning in life than just acquiring things, accruing debt, and living in a hamster wheel — on an endless pursuit to pay the bills? Right?

This may all sound quite bleak. But there are solutions on the horizon. Using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, a rubric of 17 global goals which address all the fundamental social and environmental challenges we face, as a framework, this book looks at business models that take on each of these fundamental issues. Thus, the chapters are broken down conceptually, each one unraveling the stories of a few businesses that have structured their enterprise to tackle complex problems like soil health, renewable energy, waste systems, women’s rights, conservation of open spaces and wildlife.

Why the focus on business, instead of non-profits or social enterprises? Because it’s a powerhouse that can steer the economy, consumer behavior, and the impact all that has on Mother Earth in a different direction. It would be naive to say that business does not play a role in social and environmental problems: businesses employ people, source from remote corners of the globe, and move millions of people and cargo around daily. The business community can definitely put us on a different path. That is, if we look to support this type of business, which prizes restoration over growth.

We have seen the results of business that is fixated on ROI, global dominance, and feeding an elite group of shareholders. Many are fed up with this approach. Will it always be necessary to raise exorbitant amounts of funding? Will it always be necessary to be a global force to be profitable? Will it always be necessary to build supply chains that only favor the few at the top to make it a so-called successful venture? Certainly not.

As I have been reporting on the evolution of this business landscape, I’ve seen it mature from a simplistic idea of “buy one, give one” and corporate social responsibility to a more nuanced examination of business — the rise of B corps, the benefit corporation, the purpose-driven economy. This is all part of that new lexicon and a real challenge to the conventional thought that business is primarily a profit-seeking excursion.

But to build a company with a purpose is more than just about writing a mission statement, and slapping some inspirational quotes around the offices. Leaders of the political and corporate world say that we can build a more “sustainable” world. Yet they’ve been trying to since 1987 when the term sustainable development entered our lexicon: a 300-page report, titled the Brundtland Report, talked of building a more sustainable future. It listed the interlocked crises affecting humanity: water shortages, drought, famine, pesticide runoff, overdependence on chemicals. Sound familiar?

So can we really build a more sustainable world, given that we’ve been talking about the same issues for the past three decades? Everyone I met and spoke with for this book was pretty fed up of that word. Sustain what? This imbalance?

Instead, these entrepreneurs want to rewrite the rules of business to focus on transparency, simplicity, compassion, and equity. If these values were upheld, we could begin to restore the balance.

Let me be clear. There is no perfect solution. Humans create a footprint. It is in our nature to desire, lust, and run after what we do not have. Even many of companies highlighted in this book acknowledge that they’re producing a physical product; that will undoubtedly have a footprint.

But can we do it without the injustices of the modern supply chain, without exploiting populations, without over-extracting resources, without damaging what we need to live itself, the Earth?

Yes, very much so.

These are some stories of entrepreneurs who are trying to restore civility, integrity, and transparency to business. Many have been doing this long before it was trendy, long before these buzzwords existed even. They admit, their companies are not perfect. Nor do we put them up on a pedestal and celebrate them as heroes. But they are fusing elements of business that have long been practiced — a focus on quality, self-funding ventures, building slowly, developing community. Yet doing it in a manner that suits 2020 and the aspirations of future generations. And being transparent about the challenges along the way.

In a global world, it’s hard to operate in a silo. It’s unlikely that we’ll go back to cottage industries, and entirely local economies. Thus, it’s vital to look at companies that are working at scale, and across continents. These businesses are proving that we can source coffee from East Africa and have small farmers be a bigger part of the business model; have fashion-forward ethical shoes that are made entirely in one country, using natural materials, and shipped in empty spaces in containers; or take textile waste in factories, cut it up and turn it into new usable fabrics. The models exist if want to explore them, invest in them, and let them function without obsessing over growth.

This capitalistic world order we have created has deep roots around the world. Uprooting it and designing this new economy is not an overnight task. In fact, many of the companies discussed in this book have been at it for more than a decade—and progress is slow. The tentacles of “dirty” money have gone far and wide. The business practices that have led us to this point are entrenched. A quick cleanup will not work. It requires thought, reflection, tenacity, and a certain stubbornness by CEOs and founders to slowly build a new model.

There’s one critical difference to start with though: these companies are built around a challenge, a larger problem, an issue, not a lust for profits. Hence the goal is not growth, but to solve a riddle: how do you create a closed loop product? How do you make sure that every bit of your supply chain benefits from the business? How do you feed the planet, not pilfer it in the process?

These are individuals who are in the business of restoration, fixing a system that has long been lopsided, and fundamentally broken. Albeit their flaws, since no perfect solution exists, this could be the beginnings of a new era of regeneration.