Let’s Start Designing Regeneratively
The canvas is just a beginning. Here’s how to start using it.
We’re in a moment where the need for transformation is clear but the path is anything but.
Most teams and leaders we speak with know the old ways aren’t working. They feel the tension between the extractive systems we’ve inherited and the living systems we need to align with. But the question that keeps emerging is:
Where do we even begin?
That’s why we created the Regenerative Innovation Mini Canvas. It’s a starting point for shifting how we see, question and design. It’s not just a worksheet. It’s an invitation to think about how we relate to our world. To design not just for markets, but for life.
But a tool only becomes useful when we put it into motion.
What Makes This Canvas Different?
Unlike most strategy templates, this canvas doesn’t start with value propositions or customer segments. It starts with planetary health.
Each of the six categories - Habitat & Living Systems, Food, Water & Nutrient Cycles, Climate & Energy Balance, Biodiversity, Health & Resilience, Knowledge, Innovation & Evolution, and Human & More-than-Human Personas - anchors your innovation process in the needs of living systems.
It doesn’t ask: How can you grow faster?
Instead it asks: How might your growth contribute to regeneration?
It’s a different orientation entirely. And that means the way you engage with the canvas matters.
So, How Do You Begin?
Here are five ways to start working with the mini canvas right now, wherever you are:
1. Use It as a Mirror
Before redesigning anything, use the canvas to reflect on your current business or project.
Ask:
Where are we currently aligned with living systems?
Where are we unintentionally reinforcing extractive logic?
Which categories are we ignoring entirely?
Even a 30-minute reflection session with your team can surface gaps, tensions and opportunities.
2. Choose One Category to Focus On
You don’t have to solve everything at once. Pick one planetary category and explore how it shows up in your work.
For example:
In Food, Water & Nutrient Cycles, are your operations depleting or replenishing local systems?
In Knowledge, Innovation & Evolution, is your team learning from life, or just racing to scale?
Start where there’s energy, impact or urgency.
3. Use It to Guide a Strategy Meeting
Rather than defaulting to KPIs and quarterly goals, try this:
Bring the canvas into your next leadership or design meeting.
Ask your team:
“How would our choices change if we saw our business as part of a living system?”
Let the canvas frame the conversation with better questions instead of rigid answers.
4. Map a Product or Initiative Against It
Take a specific offering or idea and walk it through each of the six categories. Where does it support life? Where might it cause harm? Where could it evolve?
You’ll likely find both quick wins and deeper redesign opportunities.
5. Pair It With a Walk, a Ritual or a Conversation
This isn’t meant to be just a business tool. It’s also a thinking tool. Use it to host a conversation in nature, on a walk with your cofounder, or in a quiet moment of reflection.
Regeneration doesn’t always start with strategy. Sometimes it starts with seeing differently.
Regeneration Doesn’t Begin With Perfection - It Begins With Perspective
The Regenerative Innovation Canvas isn’t about checking boxes or earning green credentials. It’s about shifting the lens through which we make decisions. It’s about moving from siloed innovation to systemic participation.
If you’re ready to move from awareness to action, from problem-solving to life-designing, this is your invitation.
You can download the free mini canvas here:
👉 http://www.carom.com/free-mini-canvas
And if you’ve already started using it, we’d love to hear what it’s sparking in your world.
At Carom, we’re building tools, stories and community for the regenerative transition because we don’t just need better businesses.
We need better relationships with the living world that makes business possible.