As a community cooperative, Yarn and Yield will be a regenerative intermediary. What does that mean? Let us start by breaking down the meaning of regenerative and intermediary.
What does Regenerative Mean?
This term refers to practices or systems that aim to be sustainable and actively contribute to restoring and enhancing natural systems. Regenerative approaches go beyond merely reducing harm; they seek to create conditions where ecosystems of people and the planet can flourish and improve over time.
Principles of a regenerative organisation:
- Holistic Thinking – understand and manage the organisation as part of larger ecosystems, considering interconnections between human activities, natural systems and social structures.
- Resilience and Adaptability – design systems that adapt to change, recover from disturbances and thrive in fluctuating conditions. This fosters diversity, redundancy, and flexibility in the organisation’s operations.
- Living Systems Inspiration – Mimic natural systems where waste from one process becomes food for another (circular economy), emphasising symbiosis and mutualism.
- Well-being and Equity – Prioritise the well-being of all stakeholders, including employees, communities and the environment. This includes fair distribution of resources, opportunities, and benefits.
- Continuous Learning and Innovation – Foster a learning culture where feedback loops from nature, society, and the market are used to innovate and improve practices continuously.
- Regenerative Design – Apply design principles that aim to do less harm and heal and regenerate. This might involve regenerative agriculture, biomimicry, or restorative architecture.
- Partnership Over Competition – Move away from zero-sum games towards models where partnerships can lead to mutual growth and benefit, enhancing the whole network or ecosystem.
- Transparency and Accountability – Ensure all actions are transparent and accountable not just to shareholders but to all stakeholders, including future generations.
- Local and Global Consideration – Balance local actions with global impacts, recognising that decisions have ripple effects worldwide and empower local communities to thrive.
- Energy and Resource Efficiency – Optimise the use of resources, focusing on low-impact sources, reducing waste and closing material loops.
- Cultural Transformation – Shift organisation cultural to one that values life and regeneration, involving all levels of the organisation in this transformation.
- Systemic Change Advocacy – Work towards or advocate for systemic change in policy, economics, or social norms that support regenerative practices beyond the organisation.
- Inclusion and Diversity – Recognise the value of diverse perspectives in solving complex problems and ensure inclusivity in decision-making processes.
- Long-term Perspective – Plan and act with a long-term view, where decisions are made considering their impact over generations rather than just quarterly results.
- Restorative Projects – Actively engage in or support projects and enterprises that restore degraded lands, water bodies, or communities, contributing directly to regeneration.
These principles aim to move organisations from being merely sustainable to actively contributing to the regeneration of the world around them. Implementing these requires a shift in how organisations view their role in the world, from profit-centric to life-centric models.
What does Intermediary mean?
An intermediary is an entity that connects with other actors in a network to advance the impact of the network. Here are some of the principles that guide the role and function of intermediaries.
- Facilitation of Transactions or Interactions – The primary role is to make interactions smoother, faster, or more efficient. This could be by reducing the number of steps in a transaction, lowering transaction costs or simplifying complex processes.
- Neutrality and Trustworthiness – Intermediaries should act impartially to maintain trust from all parties involved. They must be seen as reliable and fair, ensuring that no party is favoured over another unless explicitly part of their service model.
- Information Brokerage – They often collect, process and disseminate information, reducing information asymmetry between parties. This can involve market insights, product information, or regulatory updates.
- Risk Management – Intermediaries might take on or manage some project risks. This can involve providing guarantees or insurance.
- Value Addition – Beyond mere facilitation, intermediaries add value by offering services like aggregation (combining smaller units into larger, more manageable ones), customisation or quality assurance.
- Efficiency and Cost Reduction – by specialising in certain functions, intermediaries can perform tasks more efficiently than if each party did them independently, thus reducing costs for all involved.
- Access Expansion – Intermediaries can broaden the reach of goods, services or information, connecting parties who would otherwise not interact due to geographical, linguistic or other barriers.
- Compliance and Regulation – They often help in navigating regulatory environments, ensuring that transactions or interactions comply with legal standards, which can be particularly crucial in industries like finance and healthcare.
- Relationship Building – They foster long-term relationships between entities by ensuring smooth interactions, resolving conflicts and providing consistent service.
- Innovation and Adaption – Good intermediaries adapt to changing market conditions or technological advancements. They often act as innovators by introducing new methods or technologies that enhance their service or facilitate transactions.
- Dispute Resolution – Acting as a neutral party, intermediaries can facilitate the resolution of conflicts or misunderstandings that might arise between different parties.
- Service Customisation – Tailoring services or products to meet different parties’ needs makes transactions more relevant and beneficial.
- Confidentiality – Protecting sensitive information shared during transactions or interactions is crucial for maintaining trust.
- Scalability – Providing scalable solutions that can grow or shrink according to the demand or capacity of parties to serve.
- Ethical Conduct – Operating with integrity, respecting privacy and adhering to ethical business practices that promote fairness and social responsibility.
These principles guide intermediaries in maximising their utility and effectiveness while balancing various stakeholders’ needs.
A Regenerative Intermediary
Pulling our understanding of both terms together, a regenerative intermediary facilitates operational support to their community and contributes positively to environmental, social and economic regeneration using the above mentioned principles. What might this look like:
- Environmental Regeneration – An intermediary would ensure that all products and services they deal with are sourced, produced and distributed in a way that regenerates natural resources by encouraging practices like permaculture, circular economy principles or agroecology.
- Social Regeneration – An intermediary would focus on improving community well-being, ensuring fair labour practices, enhancing local economies or supporting social equity by conducting business and through the services it supports.
- Economic Regeneration – This might involve creating and supporting new businesses like cooperative and social enterprises, investing in local and sustainable businesses and using profits to fund regenerative projects.
The idea behind a regenerative intermediary is to shift from a linear, extractive economic model to one that is cyclical, restorative, and beneficial for both people and the planet. The exact role and function would depend on the local community, what the land calls for, and the people investing their energy.
Yarn and Yield is a regenerative intermediary using the Cooperative legal structure to support regenerative enterprises and projects on land in a Community Land Trust.