Regenerative Economics and Legal Change
During 2021, the platform cooperativism stream led by Bronwen Morgan has extended its 2020 work with Sydney Commons Lab to explore key issues at the intersection of law, technology and regenerative economic development (a term similar to sustainable economic development, but focusing on renewal to maintain a healthy state) in partnership with an exciting new initiative named Regen Sydney.
Regen Sydney is a network of organisations & individuals across Greater Sydney exploring a regenerative future and connecting across silos and sectors to reimagine a new economic narrative for the city. A number of ‘regen city’ initiatives emerged in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide during 2021. These initiatives are all exploring ways to support connect city-level policymaking (eg local councils) and vision with community demand, grass-roots initiatives, and professional networks. To do this, they are drawing on the lens of the Doughnut Economics approach of Kate Raworth and building on the emergent experience of multiple cities globally. Amsterdam has taken a strong lead on this globally, working to link city officials, university researchers and community input to reshape law, policy and new data indicators for progress and wellbeing. Mutual learning and diffusion of this and other city experiences is taking place through the Doughnut Economics Action Lab. Bronwen Morgan convened and chaired a plenary panel on “The Regen Movement: City, Regional and National Seeds” at the fifth annual conference of the New Economy Network of Australia in November 2021.
The initial work in setting up these broad cross-sectoral dialogues is an open-ended and cross-disciplinary endeavour, as is crucial for setting the scene for the kind of deep systemic change that is sought through these initiatives. However, the more progress is made the more crucial will become the role of law and legal frameworks.
Law and technology are core to the innovation needed to make effective connections between the data underpinning urban policymaking, professional expertise and new directions in economic development. Data-sharing platforms, hybrid legal enterprise structures (such as benefit corporations or companies structured to resemble the UK community interest company form), social procurement innovation, possible legal personality for decentralised autonomous organisations set up on blockchain: all these are elements of future pathways for cooperative and regenerative platform economies.
More broadly, current modes of professional expertise, skills and training are likely to be challenged by the shift to designing regenerative economies. Regen Sydney explored how this might manifest at the level of education through their role as the industry partner in July 2021 for UTS’ transdisciplinary subject 'Past, Present and Future of Innovation', which forms part of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation (BCII) program. Over 300 students created visions for districts across Sydney, re-defining notions of value in relation to place, as well as day-in-the-life scenarios to further explore what living in these futures would look like. Their work drew on Doughnut Economics and other ways of reframing value creation and exchange, in the areas of food, health, housing and political voice.
The challenges that would emerge to making visions such as this a reality are ones that cross multiple professions and disciplines. The legal profession is already responding to such challenges, through projects and approaches such as the Chancery Lane Project or multidisciplinary approaches that consider how legal expertise interacts with financial and accounting expertise, capital-raising and business planning as for example in the White Box Model.
Regen Sydney formally launched on 18 August 2021, with over 100 people in attendance and a strong message from the Deputy Lord Mayor of Sydney that our current measures of progress and wellbeing are ripe for change, and that “procurement is powerful”. The work of Regen Sydney will also be showcased at TedX Sydney on 26 November 2021 in a 20 minute Discovery Session showing a snapshot of the positive work already underway in Sydney to support a regenerative economy. In the remainder of 2021, Regen Sydney will be mapping the regenerative economy system, identifying active initiatives and projects that are contributing to a regenerative Sydney. Community workshops and industry roundtables are planned for early 2022, to test the appropriateness of drawing on doughnut economics, particularly in dialogue with the Greenprints model that Regen Brisbane will be drawing on.