Wilderness Centre
The Centre considers itself a ‘home from home’ for its main visitors, younger school children, and sees itself as contributing to ‘flourishing lives’.
We have introduced regenerative thinking to the Centre which has been enthusiastically welcomed. The Centre now sees itself nested ‘within Nature’ rather than being simply an outdoor learning centre that offers fun and challenging experiences. Nature is doing its mysterious work behind the scenes in this beautiful place, so serving Nature will clearly also serve the Centre.
Dartmoor ponies have been brought in to roam the fields, cattle do ‘conservation grazing’, wild boar that used to be seen as a nuisance and as causing ‘damage’ are now welcomed for the seeds they surface for the wildflower meadows as they forage for food. Insect and bird life has soared. New hedgerows guide pine martins, stoats and weasels across the land as they continue their passage across the landscape. An extensive permaculture market garden is at the planning stage. As the children absorb being with Nature in this way, the Centre is building their capability to return to school, to their community, and to home and take these practices there too at whatever level they can.
The business is now a Community Benefit Society, soon to be re-named by its ancient name ‘Wylderne’, and as a ‘regenerative hub’ in the Forest of Dean, is aspiring to contribute to both social and ecological renewal of its region.
Because it is a living case study of a business on its regenerative journey we run a Regenerative Leadership course there. Please see the ‘What We Offer’ tab. We are currently recruiting for the next cohort. Join us if you can.
We cut our teeth with Kate Raworth’s pioneering work on Doughnut Economics while supporting a cross community group in Devon seeking to create a ‘Doughnut for Devon.’
We now bring the Doughnut to businesses keen to explore how they can make their contribution to a regenerative and distributive economy.
We offer an action-oriented workshop that is practical but ambitious focusing on the deep design of business. We begin with an exercise to introduce ‘living systems’ thinking to help business leaders find their compass to navigate the transition from our existing extractive paradigm to the new paradigm of regenerative business.
The workshop invites companies to engage in a transformative agenda of becoming regenerative and distributive in their strategies, operations, and impacts, so that they help to bring humanity into the Doughnut.
Central to the tool is the concept of enterprise design. This is explored through five design layers: a company’s Purpose, Networks, Governance, Ownership, and Finance.
These design layers powerfully shape the strategic decisions and operational impacts of businesses, and ultimately determine whether or not businesses can transform to become part of a regenerative and distributive future. By diving into five layers of deep design, this tool reveals both design blockages that prevent transformative action, and design innovations that can unlock its possibility.
Here's a short video to introduce the concept of enterprise design.
Bringing the Doughnut to Business
River Avon Bioregion: connecting to ‘place’
This initiative is focused on groups and organisations of all kinds along the length of the River Avon from its source in Wiltshire in the West of England, along the 83 miles of its length to where it meets the sea close to Bristol.
It starts with a question: what happens to the nature of our work if we
•slow down
• bring ourselves into greater connection with ourselves, and with Nature;
• into connection with how our communities here have evolved with Nature through time
• reflect together on the patterns that have brought the place prosperity
Could this reveal a meaningful potential for the region that we haven’t yet tapped into - which would help us to respond to the challenges of now? Could this show a path towards a more equal and regenerative economy? Finally, could we find a new or expanded role for our work within this new story of potential that would inspire us and those we serve?
We are piloting the pilgrimage at the moment. Contact us if you’d like to join this journey.
