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In 2021, Earth Overshoot Day fell on July 29, leaving businesses and consumers on ecological deficit for the rest of the year. As we continue to live beyond the planet’s limitations, brands will need to rethink strategies for combining profit with ecological value. 

As discussed in our Sustainability Forecast 2024, the time window to address the climate emergency is extremely limited and businesses must act now. In 2021, we unpacked the concept of regenerative business – an approach in which brands evolve beyond sustainability and net-neutrality towards regeneration and net-positivity. As we move ahead, brands must accelerate the shift towards a new economic system to regenerate the planet and profits through new strategies and operations.

Regenerative capitalism is an economic approach in which brands employ regenerative economic practices to repair the ecological damage that commercial activities have made on the planet. To achieve resilience and long-term viability, business needs to regenerate economic, ecological and social systems, explains John Elkington, a global authority on corporate responsibility and sustainable development. Proactive brands are already implementing these systems: in 2021, outdoor brand and leader in green capitalism Patagonia stopped using the word ‘sustainability’ and adopted ‘regeneration’ instead. This approach leads to a new economic era in which ecological, social and economic value will be regenerative and interdependent. Regenerative capitalism provides solutions for future-proofing, enabling brands to tackle the climate emergency while maintaining business.