#122 - Regenerative Business: What Does It Mean? - with Kara Pecknold

Kara Pecknold, VP of Regenerative Design at Frog and a leading voice in sustainable innovation, joined us for a conversation on what it truly means to design for regeneration.She breaks down the challenges and opportunities of embedding regenerative thinking into organisations, helping us explore how brands can move beyond green checklists toward a deeper, systemic approach that lies at the intersection of nature, culture, and business goals.Highlighting that “Regenerative design can help businesses localise,” she also discusses a potential direction to navigate today’s global crises, thus requiring a reframing of business as we know it.This episode invites us to imagine futures where businesses give back more than they take, offering a hopeful push we all need.

In this episode, Kara draws from her experience of guiding regenerative design with clients across diverse local contexts, helping us imagine the power of viewing business like nature. She speaks on how regenerative design cannot be siloed into CSR activities, and why it's important that it be tied to all parts of the organisation.She also touches upon several frameworks tackling this problem, like biomimicry, the doughnut economy etc. - helping us put a practical approach to regeneration, rather than viewing it as an idealistic utopian future.

Tune in to discover how this future-focused approach can guide you through the complexities within the boundaries of today’s world.

Key Highlights
👉 Regenerative design encourages businesses to rethink growth by focusing on giving back more than they take from natural and social systems.
👉 Embedding regenerative thinking requires breaking silos - making it a company-wide commitment, not just a CSR initiative.
👉 Localising parts of your business can build resilience amid global disruptions like supply chain challenges and geopolitical shifts.
👉 Regeneration blends nature, culture, and business goals into an integrated systemic approach.
👉 Leadership buy-in at the top and empowerment at the grassroots are both essential for regeneration to take root.
👉 Limits and boundaries are vital concepts, challenging the endless-growth mindset and inspiring new business models.
👉 Biomimicry offers design inspiration by learning from nature’s time-tested strategies and cycles.
👉 Designing for regeneration means fostering creative disruption rather than clinging to business as usual.

Topics /chapters
(00:00) Regenerative Business: What Does It Mean? - Intro
(01:24) Introducing Kara Pecknold
(03:10) The Personal Side of Transformation
(05:20) Tactical Implementation of Regenerative Design
(09:30) Defining the Natural Element
(12:23) Do customers seek a regenerative future?
(16:49) Navigating the Tension in Regenerative Indicators
(19:40) Does Regenerative Design Apply to Digital Companies?
(24:31) Bio-regionalism and Relocalization of Business
(28:15) Regenerative and Localized Organizational Design
(31:09) Impact on Organizational Operating Models
(33:27) Role of External Stakeholders
(35:22) Defining Regeneration
(36:04) Constraints and Limits within Regeneration
(41:09) Reimaging Design beyond the Classics
(45:27) Breadcrumbs and Suggestions

Remember that you can always find transcripts and key highlights of the episode on our website: https://www.boundaryless.io/podcast/pecknold-kara

Episode recorded on Apr 24, 2025

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