Good growth is the movement from extractive relationships to regenerative relationships, considering 3 ‘capitals’: Social, natural & financial.

We are in a time of transition between models of how value is created, owned, transferred, and as such have a unique opportunity to ensure the next stage of humanity is one that is in the service of the greater interconnected, interdependent whole.

Good growth is how we develop as people and communities in a way that both brings us benefit and improves the capacity of the world around us to create ever increasing value and richness. The world around us includes everything from the inanimate material world and the essential natural world, to the intricate social, cultural and economic dynamics that humans have created. The wider our accounting of the world, and the deeper our relationships with it, the more likely we are to be growing well.

A community engaged in Good Growth develops creative methods to be self-sustaining while also improving the globe's capacity to provide ever more value for the living world (and us too!). The more expansive its view of the world and the more intimate its relationships with it, the more likely it is to develop in positive ways.

World wide wonder

All of human social and financial activity depends on the life support systems of the natural world. One way of viewing the areas in which our activities have impact is to think in terms of “capitals”; at a basic level, there are three (a more expansive version includes eight capitals):

  1. Natural capital — This refers to anything from the invisible microorganisms in the soil to the largest plant (a self-cloning seaweed the size of Cincinnati!!). All deserving respect, love in their own right, but are also the building blocks of an environment that supports among many other wonders, humans. Yaay.
  2. Social capital —This refers to the networks, relationships, culture and understandings that allow people to cooperate. It also includes the ways of relating between people that allow us to coordinate to fulfil our material, spiritual, emotional and health needs.
  3. Financial capital — This refers to money or other human-created instruments that allow us to facilitate and coordinate activities at physical, geographical and temporal scales beyond the immediate by creating the capacity to accumulate, store, transfer and exchange value.

These are not actually distinct and are in constant interaction and flow. It is the interaction of all these capitals that determines the course of our destiny as humanity (and more widely, life). While it may be popular to say money is the root of all evil, the truth is that it is an incredibly useful tool. The problems emerge when the financial world takes priority over the other worlds, when the value created in the financial world is used to justify the negative impacts of our actions in the other worlds.

As people, as communities, all our activities have an impact on the world. We are in a relationship with the world, and it is the nature of that relationship that establishes whether we are practising Good Growth.

We think that we should strive for regenerative relationships to all the capitals — and probably those we don’t even know about — (hedgehog spirituality?).

Regenerative relationships

Good growth requires us to be in a regenerative relationship with the world (or to be trying our best to get there). The regenerative relationship is one that we are largely unfamiliar with (there are communities that have retained the knowledge of this relationship — but they have been sidelined, denied, oppressed). The regenerative relationship is one that seeks to improve the world around us, to play our part in it, rather than contain it to play a part in our endeavours.

We should aim to progress our relationship from extractive to regenerative:

  1. Extractive and harmful
  2. Minimising Harm
  3. Zero Harm
  4. Positive
  5. Regenerative

The examples below do not necessarily mean that the organisation or approach reflects all of its interactions, but give an idea of what that type of relationship looks like. (click arrows to expand)

  1. Extractive and harmful: only see the elements of the capital that serve our purposes and create harms within that capital and others. We reduce the richness of the world to the one single dimension in which we can extract value — usually reducing to the financial dimension.
  2. Minimising harm: Requires an acknowledgement of the harms caused. The best version of this is design of business models to minimise impacts in the first place. There is some debate about whether “net” minimisation - where the reduction of harm happens indirectly through some kind of an offset - is a useful way to minimise or might excuse failures to design for minimisation.
  3. Zero harm: Business models that design out all negative impacts. There is some debate about whether “net” minimisation - where the reduction of harm happens indirectly through some kind of an offset - is a useful way to minimise or might excuse failures to design for zero harm.
  4. Positive: Designing business models that have no harm and in addition have positive impacts.
  5. Regenerative: Designing business models that strengthen the systems it interacts with to develop their capacity to generate ever greater benefits to life across all capitals.

Good growth

As a species we have done spectacularly at improving humanity’s capacity and lives. Our models have brought us a long way. But now we’re seeing that those models too were limited, and that ultimately we are part of the natural world, we are nature. We should strive to return to our place within it - yes, equipped with our knowledge and tools, but to improve it for all living beings. Culture, along with technology is part of the toolset with which we can approach the challenges approaching and try to avoid future ones.