Why We’re Building a New Framework for a Regenerative Economy
Moving beyond tools of growth to tools of belonging: how regenerative innovation reorients business inside planetary systems.
Blending nature with elements of human business
What happens when the tools we’ve used to make sense of the world no longer match the complexity of the world we live in?
For decades, businesses have relied on strategy tools and models like the Business Model Canvas and Design Thinking. They offered a way to see an enterprise on a single page, and a way to organize thinking, test ideas and build (or “innovate”) with structure. It worked because it simplified.
But simplicity can also blind us.
These tools helped companies grow, scale and optimize. But they often left out the most important parts of the story:
· Where do our materials come from? Where does our waste go?
· Whose water do we use?
· What systems are disrupted in our pursuit of progress?
Our question really should be:
What does life need to thrive, and are we helping or hurting that process?
At Carom, we believe that business is never separate from the living world. It is nested within it. Every supply chain, every building, every product decision shapes and is shaped by ecosystems. But most business tools don't help us see that. And if we can't see it, we can't act on it.
That’s why we’re building a new kind of framework.
It’s not designed to map the profits or pitch decks in our extractive mindset. Instead, it’s designed to map relationships with living systems: watersheds, nutrient cycles, climates, biodiversity, communities. These are not side considerations.
They are the economy. They are what make business possible.
Just as the Business Model Canvas helped simplify business logic into something people could design with, Carom’s regenerative innovation framework helps leaders see the larger system they are part of and begin to find ways to operate in alignment with it.
It’s not about controlling nature or minimizing harm, it’s about learning how to participate in a thriving system.
Our framework, then, is a kind of map..not one that leads to growth for growth’s sake, but one that helps you locate your work within the real, interdependent systems of the planet. It helps businesses ask:
What ecological processes do we rely on every day?
What invisible relationships are we affecting?
What would it look like to operate in a way that gives more than it takes?
We don’t need another set of KPIs; we need a new lens.
In the coming weeks, we’ll begin introducing more, including the archetypes that will help ground us in the living patterns that help bring this framework to life.
But before we go there, we invite you to pause here, for a moment, with the ‘why?’ Because regeneration isn’t just a strategy. It’s a shift in how we understand our place in the world.
Curious about how your business or organization fits into planetary systems?
Join us to begin your regenerative journey.
Connect with Carom - let’s co-create this future!
jeremy@carom.com
🔗 www.carom.com
📱 Instagram: @carom.cares
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