What Is Regenerative Innovation? Defining a New Path Forward

Questioning traditional innovation in a regenerative world

Innovation has become the gospel of progress.

We celebrate it, fund it, teach it. We chase newness, disruption and growth with the promise that innovation will always solve our most urgent challenges—from climate change to inequality. But after decades of relentless and continuous invention, we’re left asking:

Innovation for what? For whom? At what cost?

It’s time for us to rethink innovation—not just in practice, but in purpose. It's time to move beyond innovation as we’ve known it, toward something deeper. Something that doesn't just minimize harm, but actively restores the systems we rely on.

We call this regenerative innovation.

The Trouble with Traditional Innovation

Traditional innovation is rooted in a mechanistic worldview—where nature is a resource, people are users or consumers, and success is measured in scale, speed, and efficiency.

This kind of innovation has given us dazzling technologies and massive growth. But it has also:

• Accelerated ecological overshoot

• Disconnected us from the places we depend on

• Solved isolated problems while deepening systemic ones

It seems that all too often, innovation just works in service of the very systems that are breaking the planet.

So What Is Regenerative Innovation?

Regenerative innovation is not just a greener version of the same old story. It’s a fundamentally different mindset.

At Carom, we define regenerative innovation as the practice of designing and evolving products, processes and systems that restore ecological and social vitality, work in partnership with living systems and contribute to long-term planetary health.

This means designing with life, not just for human convenience. It means seeing every innovation not as an isolated object, but as a living participant in a larger, interdependent system.

Connection of plant and water cycle.

What Makes It Regenerative?

Regenerative innovation:

• Centers life: It asks how a product, service or system contributes to the health of people, places and planetary systems—not just how it ‘performs’.

• Works with cycles: It designs for nutrient loops, water flows, energy balances and time scales beyond the quarterly report.

• Acknowledges nested systems: It considers not just the user, but the ecosystem, bioregion and future generations.

• Integrates more-than-human perspectives: It recognizes that rivers, soil, pollinators and even microbial networks are also stakeholders.

• Leans into co-evolution: It’s not about control or dominance—it’s about adaptation, reciprocity and mutual benefit.

How Carom Practices Regenerative Innovation

At Carom, we’ve developed a suite of tools to help the move from extractive to regenerative practices:

• The Holistic Planetary Framework: A design and assessment lens rooted in the real systems that support life on Earth—habitats, nutrient cycles, biodiversity, climate balance and more.

• The Regenerative Innovation Canvas: A living blueprint for exploring and shaping innovations that serve both human and planetary needs.

• Regenerative Archetypes: Guiding ‘personas’ that help teams embody different roles—like The Healer, The Guardian or The Kinship Builder—in the innovation process.

• A Regenerative Business Assessment: A scoring system to help organizations understand where they are on the journey from linear to regenerative—and what their transformation path might look like.

Each of these tools reflects one core truth: Innovation is not neutral. It always impacts the systems around it.

The question is—will those impacts be degenerative, sustainable or regenerative?

Why Now?

We’re in a moment that calls for more than better products or smarter solutions. We need a fundamental shift in how we relate to the world.

The climate is changing. Species are disappearing. Inequality is widening. And many of the tools we’ve relied on—especially innovation as usual—are no longer enough.

Regenerative innovation offers a new story. One where businesses become stewards of place. Where growth is measured in vitality. Where design is a form of care.

A Living Invitation

Regenerative innovation isn’t a trend or a technique. It’s a commitment—to life, to future generations, to the places we belong to and depend on.

At Carom, we’re not just imagining this future. We’re building the tools, frameworks and community to help bring it into being.

We invite you to join us.

Not in scaling faster—but in restoring deeper.
Not in competing harder—but in co-creating better.
Not in optimizing for the short-term—but in innovating for life.

What if your next innovation wasn’t just less harmful—but life-giving?

Let’s find out.

Connect with Carom

 jeremy@carom.com
🔗 www.carom.com
📱 Instagram: @carom.cares
💼 Jeremy on LinkedIn
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