A plea for regenerative enterprise

Interview by Anne-Sophie Moreau. 

You believe that most CSR policies are insufficient. Why?

Christophe Sempels: In most cases, companies are content to reduce the negative impact of their business on nature, including humans. But they’re still endangering ecosystems. A recent study published in Nature concludes that seven of eight Earth system boundaries have already been crossed. Some, such as the destruction of biodiversity, in alarming proportions. Consequently, we can’t be satisfied with a CSR policy that aims to reduce negative impact on the environment, while continuing to destroy areas that are already in the red zone. It’s like seeing an overflowing bath tub and turning the tap to reduce the flow by a quarter and hoping it will prevent the bathroom flooding. We should be aiming for net positive contribution, by which I mean bringing our activities to within the boundaries of what is safe and just.

‘Regeneration means creating the conditions for an ecosystem to reach its potential’

You advocate a model for regenerative enterprise. How do you define it?

Socioecological regeneration — because it’s both social and ecological — is often presented as the capacity to generate a net positive impact on global commons. That means recreating the conditions in which ecosystems and humans can flourish, by ensuring we exchange goods and information in a way that has a positive effect on the planet.

It’s important to emphasise that only living things can regenerate. If you break a vase, it can’t repair itself. But if you cut your finger chopping an onion, your cells will spontaneously begin their endogenous regeneration process. To illustrate how an ecosystem flourishes, let’s look at a rich, diverse forest. Each tree creates its own organic matter, locks in carbon, harbours biodiversity, regulates the water cycle, and improves soil fertility. If we exploit the forest, by making it species-specific, or worse, if we create an artificial ecosystem, we hamper, or prevent, its ability to thrive. Regenerative enterprise looks to generate net positive impact on ecosystems and humans by recreating the conditions that enable them to flourish.

How do we recreate those conditions? Do we just let nature regenerate itself?

We have to do two things at the same time. First, bring the negative impacts of enterprise to below the safe threshold established by scientific research. For example, according to the Science-Based Targets initiative, to keep climate warming below 1.5 °C (a target fast becoming unattainable), we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 42% between 2020 and 2030, and by 90% between 2020 and 2050. By 2050, we need to keep our emissions to 10% of today’s level. Some activities won’t be a…