This week we updated the Regenerative Design Lab reading list and included five books that we think are a good way into regenerative thinking for engineers (and other humans). As far as I can remember, the word regenerative is hardly mentioned in any of them. But what I think they do between them is create a holistic view of people as part of a complex, living world. And from there, to think about how we work with, rather than against that interdependence.
From What is to What If – Rob Hopkins
How the climate crisis is a crisis of the imagination and the work we need to do to imagine a thriving future. A brilliant, far-seeing book, with an excellent podcast series to accompany it.
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
This book creates a bridge between Indigenous and scientific thinking. The short essay format makes this an easy book to dip into and return to.
Thinking in Systems – Donella Meadows
A great way into systems thinking, and for the early members of the lab, the way into exploring regenerative design, even though these are not terms Meadows uses.
Doughnut Economics – Kate Raworth
The book that launched the famous model linking social foundations with planetary boundaries, it is full of clear-thinking models for breaking free of the unlimited-growth paradigm.
The Hidden Life of Trees – Peter Wohlleben
Sheds light on how trees communicate with each other, collaborate and work with shared intelligence. Shows how living systems are interconnected and use feedback loops to respond to environmental change. Helps us shift from an anthropocentric to ecocentric view of how ecosystems work.
These are the entry points. The full reading list on the Constructivist website has a set of more in-depth and regenerative-specific books to follow on with.