Make→Shift is part of TrendWatching's Free Trend Updates. Each monthly issue examines one cross-industry movement no brand can afford to ignore.

We answer 'why now?' and 'what next?' and provide examples of innovations that are already acting on this trend. With the aim of inspiring you to think up your own opportunities and solutions.

All in a six-minute read.

SUSTAINABLE TIPPING POINT

Name a brand that hasn’t launched a range of sustainable products: it’s harder than you think. Carbon neutrality? Been there, done that. Plenty of progress has yet to be made, but for a large portion of consumers, sustainability has become a given and has lost some of its aspirational sheen. Which is why regenerative is fast eclipsing sustainable. In a survey of 3,000 consumers in the US, 80% said they preferred ‘regenerative’ as a term, with many of them finding ‘sustainable’ too passive (ReGen, 2020). So: where to start? Look no further than right under your feet — the soil.

SOIL SUFFERING

As we continue to exhaust the earth’s natural resources, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that soil is paying a price. According to WWF, half of the planet’s topsoil has been eroded by unsustainable farming practises over the last 150 years. Losing our topsoil means losing the natural means to grow 95% of our food, which is a daunting reality. While regenerative can be defined in a variety of ways, it comes down to systems that enhance natural resources instead of depleting them. For farming, that means prioritizing soil health by using cover crops and crop rotation, ensuring that grazing is highly managed, and not tilling. It’s all about adopting practices that mimic natural ecological processes, both to revive degraded farmland and to sequester carbon in the soil.

REGENERATIVE GOLDMINE

The benefits of TERRAPY won’t just be felt by the earth, but also by farmers. One study indicated that regenerative agriculture could be 78% more profitable than conventional farming. Whether for profit, purpose or both, large corporates have started getting their hands dirty. Danone, the French food giant, is allocating USD 20 million to help farms across North America implement regenerative practices, while General Mills has committed to one million acres of regenerative agriculture, and luxury group Kering just announced that their new Regenerative Fund for Nature will transform one million hectares to regenerative over the next five years.

Regenerative’s true riches may lie in the capacity to sequester carbon in soil. By adopting regenerative cropping methods, 0.2 to 1.4 tons of carbon can be stored per hectare per year. A recent white paper by the Rodale Institute suggests that we could sequester more than 100% of current annual CO₂ emissions if all global cropland and pasture would be managed using regenerative organic farming methods.

Increasingly, the ripples of TERRAPY are being felt across industries, from fashion brands to travel operators. As usual, Patagonia (😊) is blazing trails, not only pledging to source 100% regenerative cotton and hemp by 2030, but brewing a climate-positive beer on the side, too. Check out these cross-industry initiatives:

• Travel: Tourism New Zealand plans to turn its attention away from economic growth and towards bettering the health of its communities and environment by actively promoting slow travel, pairing tours with tree planting and introducing schemes to protect marine habitats.

• Work: Factory as a Forest is a methodology devised by Interface, a zero-emission flooring company based in the US. It provides a blueprint for how a modern factory can positively impact the environment, for example through carbon sequestration and nutrient cycling.

• Events: IMEX, a UK-based events management company, is leading a ‘Regenerative Revolution’ in the events industry. It recently developed a framework to help event producers design out waste and pollution, and focus instead on rejuvenating natural systems and communities.

From "The Fight for Facts" to the new "Hands Off" economy, our previous Make→Shift issues provide a cornucopia of purpose-driven insights, plus actions you can take on the trends that matter.