Regenerative Design
How can organizations become active cultivators of healthy social and ecological systems?
Our economic system teaches us to see the world through a lens of scarcity. Extraction, competition, and short-term gains are framed as necessary strategies for profit in a system that treats resources as finite and negative impact as external. This mindset has left organizations increasingly fragile and disconnected from the social and ecological systems they rely on to thrive.
Regenerative design offers a different foundation. It draws from living systems, which show us that flourishing—in both business and life—depends on principles such as reciprocity, circularity, and a deep connection to place.
At iF, we see regenerative design as a fundamental reorientation to how business is done. All organizations are nested within larger living systems. This perspective invites leaders to cultivate the health of the social, ecological, and economic systems that sustain them—giving to get back instead of taking. We strive to embed our nine core regenerative principles into every engagement because we believe this shift is essential. When the planet thrives, organizations thrive.
iF's Regenerative Design Discipline
Building on iF’s commitment to innovative, purpose-driven strategy, our Regenerative Design approach helps organizations reimagine their role in the systems they touch, moving from short-sighted extractive models to ones that generate long-term vitality for people, communities, and the planet.
At the core of this approach is a simple but powerful framework that helps organizations see complexity more clearly and act with intention. We guide teams through three key areas of inquiry:
- What is the essence of our challenge? We work with you to uncover the unique needs, resources, and dynamics at play within your organization, the place where you do business, and the broader systems influencing your work.
- What are our key relationships and how is value exchanged across our network? Together, we examine the stakeholders and systems you’re connected to and explore how value—material, social, financial—is currently exchanged. This reveals new possibilities for reciprocity and shared benefit.
- What systems will enable us to have regenerative impact? Finally, we help surface practices, policies, and processes that embrace a living-systems approach across operations, product, company culture, and more.
.jpg?width=2000&height=864&name=FastCoMockup-stacks%20(3).jpg "FastCoMockup-stacks (3)")
Our Offerings
Through customized tools, facilitated learning, and strategic guidance, iF supports organizations in taking the first—and next—steps toward regenerative transformation. Our work helps teams build the insight, relationships, and structures needed not just to minimize harm, but to become catalysts for systemic health, resilience, and innovation.
For many organizations, regeneration is an inspiring but abstract ideal. iF’s Regenerative Design Learning Sessions offer a clear entry point to regenerative design—whether you're new to regenerative thinking or looking to apply it to specific functions like hiring, governance, or product strategy.
Each session is custom-built to reflect your organization’s needs, challenges, and learning styles. We do the homework: conducting subject-matter expert interviews, analyzing your sector, and mapping systemic dynamics, so your team can focus on learning, reflecting, and envisioning what’s next.
These sessions equip organizations to:
- Deeply understand regeneration in the context of their industry and challenges
- Build a shared foundation of knowledge across teams, creating the conditions for aligned, strategic action
To catalyze regenerative thinking across teams, we offer customized versions of our Regenerative Design Card Deck. These workshop facilitation tools are designed for repeated use in strategy sessions, product ideation, and service innovation.
Each deck is grounded in your organization’s context (industry, geography, and stakeholder ecosystem) and built to prompt critical conversations about systemic impact, organizational role, and future potential. The Regenerative Design cards aren’t just exercises; they’re strategic assets.
Use them to:
- Spark insight during early-stage exploration or long-range planning
- Identify opportunities for regenerative action or product development
- Align diverse stakeholders around shared regenerative goals
- Surface diverse perspectives, tensions, and promising ideas
- Shift conversations from extraction and efficiency to interdependence and renewal
We also offer facilitation guides and onboarding sessions to ensure the deck becomes a living part of your team’s design and decision-making processes, not a one-off tool.
We partner with mission-aligned organizations to design regenerative strategies that are rooted in systems thinking and real-world constraints. Our approach takes your team beyond extractive or linear planning to:
- Surface living indicators of health and resilience across your organizational ecosystem
- Align internal capabilities with long-term regenerative value
- Articulate the benefits of regenerative approaches, such as efficiency, resilience, innovation, and equity, for your organization and stakeholders
- Map interdependencies and identify leverage points to begin or accelerate transformation
Whether you're looking to evolve your core business model, reimagine your role in a supply ecosystem, or shift internal practices to reflect regenerative values, we guide you through a structured yet emergent process that brings clarity, creativity, and courage.