From Sustainability to Regeneration
In recent years, sustainability has become a defining theme in business strategy. Yet for all its prominence, a growing body of thought suggests that sustainability, as currently practiced, may no longer be sufficient.
The distinction is subtle but important. Sustainability, in its conventional form, is largely concerned with reducing harm—minimising environmental impact, improving efficiencies, and making existing systems less destructive. Regeneration, by contrast, is oriented towards restoration: actively rebuilding natural systems, replenishing resources, and leaving environments better than they were found.
At a time when ecological degradation is accelerating, the difference between “less bad” and “net positive” is no longer academic. It is structural.
This tension is not new. In 1995, John Elkington introduced the concept of the triple bottom line, urging businesses to measure success not only through profit, but also through their impact on people and the planet. The framework was intended as a provocation—a call to rethink the foundations of capitalism itself.
Two decades later, Elkington publicly distanced himself from his own creation.
In a widely noted “recall,” he argued that the triple bottom line had been reduced to a compliance mechanism—an accounting tool used to balance trade-offs rather than to fundamentally reimagine how businesses operate. While companies continued to pursue financial performance with urgency and discipline, their commitments to social and environmental outcomes were often treated as secondary—aspirational, but rarely decisive.
The result, in Elkington’s view, was a form of systemic complacency. Businesses appeared more responsible, yet the underlying trajectory remained largely unchanged.
He described the phenomenon as a “placebo effect”: a set of practices that create the impression of progress without materially altering outcomes. Corporate social responsibility initiatives, while well-intentioned, often sit adjacent to core business strategy rather than embedded within it—limiting both their scale and their impact. As investor Nick O’Donohue has observed, initiatives that are not integral to a company’s operating model rarely deliver lasting solutions.
To be clear, the triple bottom line did have an effect. It broadened the conversation and introduced new forms of accountability. Business today is, in many respects, more conscious of its externalities than it was in the 1990s.
But, as Elkington argues, incremental progress is no longer enough.
The scale and speed of contemporary challenges—from climate change to resource depletion and widening inequality—demand a more fundamental shift. What is required is not simply more responsible capitalism, but a different form of capitalism altogether: one that is economically inclusive, socially equitable, and environmentally restorative.
This is where the concept of regeneration becomes critical.
Unlike sustainability, which tends to optimise existing systems, regeneration requires their redesign. It asks organisations to move beyond improving current products, processes, and supply chains, and instead to reconsider their purpose and construction from first principles.
This is not a marginal adjustment. It is a structural transformation.
Regenerative organisations do not begin with the end product and seek incremental efficiencies. They start earlier—examining how value is created, how resources are sourced, and how outcomes are measured. They are defined not only by what they produce, but by the systems they help restore.
Such a shift also challenges the metrics by which success is defined. Profit remains essential, but it is no longer sufficient. Measures of success must expand to include social contribution and environmental regeneration—not as parallel objectives, but as integrated outcomes.
Achieving this is complex. It requires organisations to develop new capabilities, reconfigure incentives, and, in many cases, disrupt their own business models. It demands long-term thinking in environments often dominated by short-term pressures.
Yet the alternative—continuing to refine systems that are fundamentally extractive—carries far greater risk.
Elkington’s original intent was not to provide a framework for incremental improvement, but to provoke a deeper reconsideration of capitalism’s trajectory. That provocation remains unresolved.
If sustainability represented an important step forward, regeneration may represent the necessary next one.
The shift from “doing less harm” to “making things better” is not merely semantic. It reflects a broader redefinition of the role business must play in society—and the scale of change now required.
The trajectory of that shift will, to a significant extent, shape the future of both business and the systems upon which it depends.
About the Author
Mike Middleton is the founder and CEO of Marty McFly, a futures consultancy that helps brands and organisations make better long-term decisions in an increasingly complex world.