Regenerative California

Regenerative California

The Challenge:

Our modern economy has delivered remarkable prosperity. That same economy has also led to, social unrest, a climate crisis, and the depletion of natural resources among other challenges. A regenerative economy by contrast is one that delivers enduring health and prosperity for both human and natural systems.

Our vision is for California to lead the nation with a network of place-based regenerative economies that demonstrate a path to prosperity for California.

What Can Be Done:

Residents, businesses and government leaders are looking for tangible models and examples of regenerative economies to believe the transformation of our current economic system is possible and to begin to take steps in that direction.

Over the course of its over 150-year history, California has become one of the leading economies in the world. California has also enacted many of the country’s most innovative social and environmental policies and regulations, and businesses have demonstrated that such standards contribute to economic growth. And yet even as a global leader and economic super-power, California faces many of the same challenges as elsewhere: record-high temperatures and droughts, unprecedented wildfires, a growing population of unhoused people, and a widening wealth gap.

California has what it takes to collaborate across traditional silos of government, nonprofit and the private sector to design and activate regional regenerative economies that deliver enduring health and prosperity.

How Regenerative California is Meeting the Challenge:

Regenerative California is a collaboration of business, community, government and nonprofit leaders with an ambition to help Californians transform our current economic system to be regenerative, thereby creating enduring health and prosperity for California.  We bring people together across industries and sectors in regional economies to demonstrate a path to prosperity for California.  We connect and convene to identify regional challenges and opportunities; we support and enable partners to co-design and implement a portfolio of projects; and we educate and amplify to inspire with stories of what works.

Monterey County was selected as our first pilot region because it features many of the social and environmental challenges and opportunities found elsewhere across the state. In Monterey we are working with partners across the private, public and nonprofit sectors to co-design and implement projects that tackle the interconnected challenges of affordable housing, agricultural transitions, access to healthy food, and conservation of critical kelp forests. These projects were identified as the ones that will help strengthen the local Monterey economy in ways that deliver enduring health and prosperity to residents, businesses and the natural environment.