Sustainability and Regenerative Development: The Path to a Post-Sustainability Framework

The term “sustainable” and “green” have become common parlance, and virtually every business, product, city and consultant you can name is keen to convince you that they are and have always been green. This discussion will actively involve attendees in appreciative inquiry regarding what sustainable development really means within enterprises, and how it is different from “Green.” We will discuss what works and what doesn’t work to “integrate” sustainability into the operations of public and private enterprises, and conclude with a discussion of Regenerative Development, a concept going well beyond mere sustainable development and grounded on the notion that enterprises of all kinds need to acknowledge and measurably deliver on their obligations to return more to Society and Nature than they take. We will explore this Regenerative Development framework as the enterprise model of the future.