Resonances: The Potential of Regenerative Practice and Indigenous Ways of Being in Relationship to Place
The Impact Fund is an internal program supporting thought leadership in sustainability and digital innovation for the built environment. It runs annually, funding projects, studies, essays, and advisory pieces that provide new insights into how to perceive, design, and develop our human environment. It is an opportunity to reflect, question, think big, and offer solutions to make the world more resilient, just, and regenerative. The essays written here will form a book collection called The Global Impact Essays.
The first of these essays, Resonances: The Potential of Regenerative Practice and Indigenous Ways of Being in Relationship to Place by Mary Casey and Robin Hawker, looks at the parallels between the worldview of Regenerative Practice and Indigenous ways of being and being in relationship to living systems.
The building industry has arrived at what Thomas Kuhn, author of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, would have called a crisis—a point at which one can see that the current way of seeing the world is creating serious issues—and this is not a one-off occurrence but a pattern. It is time to consider other ways of looking at how the understanding of the world has been framed and develop new perspectives that better fit observed reality. Rather than thinking the planet would be better off without human beings, this essay explores how people are not only necessary to Nature; we are Nature.
In the past twenty-five years of sustainability consulting, the extent of the utility of ‘less harmful’ ways of approaching humanity's impact on living systems has been reached. To help reconcile humanity's relationship with the ecosystem, the building industry has the opportunity to be responsible for its impact and seek to change from a degenerative to a regenerative model.
"From 'less bad' to 'what does good look like' is the crucial conversation of this year and the coming decades. This work is complex, and we need the skills to hold that complexity, to work with these dynamic processes sustainably over generations towards a thriving future, not a compromised one. Ultimately, this is about who we are committed to being and creating structures to support that development." Mary Casey
This is the work of regenerative practice.
Exploring the strong parallels between regenerative practice and Indigenous ways of being and being in relationship to living systems in Australia, this essay considers what those resonances could produce if they were combined more internationally. By contributing to this process, connecting these ways of working – understanding, stewardship, and science - Introba has the opportunity to transform how the building industry collectively addresses climate change.
"Through Introba's Impact Fund program, I've written an essay in which I reflect on how we got here and what I see as the necessary shift in mindset. The unrealized potential of a regenerative approach is informed by the deep Indigenous knowledge of the places we practice.
I don't offer answers, but I am interested in exploring the question through our work. This essay is sending up a flare: we wish to be a contributing force to regenerative design. If you are, too, please get in touch." Mary Casey
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Artist Acknowledgement: Lani Balzan
Title: Coming Together
The artwork in this report was created for Introba, representing their journey paths and commitment to helping close the gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and Non-Indigenous Australians.
This essay explores the strong parallels between the worldview of Regenerative Practice and Indigenous ways of being and being in relationship to living systems in Australia.
As practitioners in the built environment, we’re specifically interested in how the application of these ideas to our work can support and enable a thriving world.
What outcomes could these resonances produce if we implement them intentionally in our design practice?
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