ReGenFriends™ is a customer-centric diverse and inclusive global platform that invites all different types of brands, businesses, organizations and customers to join together and promote regenerative solutions.
ReGenFriends™ span Fortune 50 to start-up companies working in consumer goods, finance, regulatory, tech, food, agriculture, fashion, logistics, renewables, and more. We're honored to call some of the world's most impactful brands and organizations ReGenFriends™.
Join us in leading the regenerative business revolution so we may all share in a prosperous future.
We Are
ReGen
Friends™
A Race To
Prosperity
We believe a regenerative economy based on businesses utilizing the principles of regeneration (restore, renew and grow) offers the greatest economic opportunity of this century.
We have termed it “A Race to Prosperity” for those companies and organizations that embrace regenerative systems and values into the fabric of their operations.
More importantly, regenerative is inclusive of sustainability, organic, conventional, GMO, Non-GMO, syntropic farming, carbon smart farming, agroforestry, silvopasture, the circular economy, doughnut economics, closed loop, and capitalism in its most profit-hungry form. All are welcome, and in fact their economic lives depend on it.
#Billion
Person
Movement
The #BillionPersonMovement Global Challenge was set in motion by extreme consumer demand revealed in The Emerging Regenerative Consumer national research report.
To reach a #BillionPersonMovement by Earth Day, April 22, 2023, ReGenFriends™ will host a series of events and sponsored Global Business Challenges. ALL ARE WELCOME to participate regardless of size, scale or impact. If you would like to present your regenerative solution at a ReGenFriends Global Challenge event, submit to enter the challenge here (it's free and only takes about 5 minutes).
ReGenFriends™ #BillionPersonMovement Goals:
NET-POSITIVE regenerative practices will be featured throughout the day via keynotes, panels and pitches. Our updated 2020 "The Emerging Regenerative Customer" national research data will be revealed and used to anchor discussions.
2020
Events
Subjects of the day will include two keynotes, six panel sessions, and two pitches for each session (12 pitches over the course of the day):
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SOIL
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AGRICULTURE
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FOOD
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TEXTILES
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APPAREL
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PACKAGING
All are welcome, and in fact, our collective economic lives depend on your involvement. Come join us at this #ReGenFriendly event to share your thoughts, ideas, and passions!
SPEAKERS
KEYNOTE
Dr. Jonathan Foley
Executive Director, Project Drawdown
Dr. Jonathan Foley is a world-renowned environmental scientist, sustainability expert, author, and public speaker. His work is focused on understanding our changing planet, and finding new solutions to sustain the climate, ecosystems, and natural resources.
Foley’s groundbreaking research and insights have led him to become a trusted advisor to governments, foundations, non-governmental organizations, and business leaders around the world. He has published over 130 peer-reviewed scientific articles. In 2014, Thomson Reuters named him a Highly Cited Researcher in ecology and environmental science, placing him among the top 1 percent most cited global scientists.
Dr. Foley has taught at several major universities on topics ranging from climate change, global sustainability solutions, the future of the food system, and addressing the world’s “grand challenges”. He has also written many popular pieces in publications like National Geographic, the New York Times, the Guardian, and Scientific American. He is also frequently interviewed by international media outlets, and has appeared on National Public Radio, the PBS NewsHour, the BBC, CNN, and in the New York Times, the Guardian, the Washington Post, Salon, WIRED, the HBO documentary on climate change “Too Hot Not to Handle”, and the upcoming film series “Let Science Speak”.
Foley has won numerous awards and honors for his work, including the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, awarded by President Clinton; the J.S. McDonnell Foundation’s 21st Century Science Award; an Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellowship; the Sustainability Science Award from the Ecological Society of America; and the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Award. In 2014, he was also named as the winner of the prestigious Heinz Award for the Environment.
(more coming soon)
VENUE
The Presidio was carefully chosen not only because of its natural beauty and grandeur but also because it is a working example of regeneration. All venue proceeds go directly back into supporting The Presidio of San Francisco including trail restoration, renovations and education programs to grow children's appreciation for nature.
TRANSPARENT PRICING
We are a woman owned, self-funded small business that's passionate about creating a regenerative future for all. Fixed costs (venue and food only) for this event are roughly $175/person.
Ticket price includes: light breakfast, buffet lunch and hosted happy-hour reception with menus developed by celebrated James Beard award-winning chef Traci Des Jardins. Ingredients are farm to fork and sourced from local farmers with sustainable practices. The #BillionPersonMovement Global Challenge is a zero-waste event.
Tickets: $150-$1000
Photo from left: Tammy Williams (She's IT), Meg Adelman (Navitas Organics), Chris Hortinela (Vitamin Angels), Susanne Stenner (Novo Nordisk), Doniga Markegard (Markegard Family Farm), Vincent Stanley (Patagonia)
ReGenFriends 2019 Summit
PROGRAM
THE EMERGING REGENERATIVE CUSTOMER
What They Think, How They Feel & What They're Urging Companies To Do Next
“Regenerative” is the buzzword of today in agriculture, food, biology and even in finance. To regenerate literally means to restore, renew and grow. Nature regenerates itself constantly with an ingenious and elegant brilliance we all admire.
The question is can business follow nature’s brilliance? And, will consumers care? And if so, will it lead to an economic benefit for people, planet and prosperity?
We chose to ask these questions and more in our 2020 ReGen for the NextGen™ national survey. We asked over 1,500 shoppers aged 18 and older to tell us what they know about “regenerative” principles and a wider range of topics relating to how regeneration can positively affect their lives through their buying choices. The results are stunning.
For more than two decades, Whole Health Marketing has been tracking the trends of shoppers in the U.S., taking note of where they shop, how they shop and what issues are most important to them as shoppers. Whole Health Marketing has partnered with ReGenFriends™ to conduct this research.
Emily M. Olson
ReGen Friends™
Whole Health Marketing
Nils-Michael Langenborg
ReGen Friends™
Whole Health Marketing
KEYNOTE I
The Worldwide Web Can Regenerate the Worldwide Food Web
Soil bacteria play a critical role in ensuring soil health. They perform many important ecosystem services in the soil including improved soil structure and soil aggregation, recycling of soil nutrients, and water recycling. Quorum sensing is cell-to-cell communication in soil bacteria. As in higher organisms, the information supplied is critical for synchronizing the activities of large groups of cells. Consumers are also large groups that are deeply curious to know how they can make better choices in their everyday lives and take personal responsibility to reverse climate change
This session explores the economic benefits that come with emerging technologies that empower consumers to co-create regenerative solutions through personal choice.
SOIL
Soil Health is Planetary Wealth
As we harvest the bounty of our planet’s soils and seas we are unintentionally (or intentionally) reducing its productivity.
Half of the topsoil on the planet has been lost in the last 150 years. These impacts include compaction, loss of soil structure, nutrient degradation, and soil salinity. In contrast, living soils contain more organisms in a single tablespoon than all of humanity.
This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to healthy and productive soils.
AGRICULTURE
Farmers Are Carbon Heroes
Soil carbon not only stores carbon dioxide (CO2), but also offers other benefits—it acts as a chemical filter (with soil minerals) for clean water, reduces soil erosion, conserves water, provides microbial habitats and sources of long‐term slow‐release nutrients, and improves soil structure and productivity. Soil organic matter (SOM) can be stockpiled using numerous best management practices including sustainable forestry practices; no‐till and conservation tillage in cropped land; cover cropping; and forage, agro-forestry, wetland, and grassland management.
This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to carbon sequestration through agriculture and ranching.
FOOD
Transparency is the New IP
For many consumers the primary drivers for food purchases are taste, quality, price and convenience. However, they still want more from their food suppliers. They want honesty and transparency. Consumers are increasingly interested in full transparency from manufacturers, brands and retailers. Moreover, they are interested in co-creating regenerative solutions with farmers, suppliers, brands and retailers so that they can actively contribute to net-positive solutions. From farm land to landfills they want the full story. With increased transparency comes intellectual property and the ability to fully differentiate from competitors.
This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to full transparency.
Jessica Hayes
Rebbl
Carrie Richards
Richards Grassfed Beef
LUNCH BREAK
Join Us for "Farm to Fork" Fare Sourced from Local Growers with Regenerative Practices
The Presidio Trust has partnered with James Beard award-winning chef Traci Des Jardins to offer catering. A native of Northern California, Traci Des Jardins has six restaurants in San Francisco, including three at the Presidio, in partnership with the Presidio Trust: The Commissary, Arguello, and TRANSIT. The Commissary has been selected as one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants in Northern California for two consecutive years. Her other award-winning restaurants include Jardinière, Mijita Cocina Mexicana, and Public House.
Traci Des Jardins is a two-time James Beard award-winner and has earned a number of industry accolades. She sits on the board of La Cocina, a San Francisco based non-profit business incubator. She is a deeply committed activist and philanthropist working with hunger relief organizations such as Share Our Strength, Citymeals On-Wheels, and other non-profits such as amfAR.
KEYNOTE II
Tales of a Reformed Sustainabilist
Global emissions have risen for three consecutive years marking another record high in 2019. While the gap between countries’ pledges and actions continues to grow, the world is further off course than ever from meeting the SDG goals of the Paris climate agreement. Changes in the climate have led to irreversible and catastrophic events experienced both locally and globally.
Youth around the globe initiated the first ever global strike, as they marched in protest of climate change.
Customers take comfort in the concept of sustainability as something familiar equated with doing less harm. However, they’re not satisfied with the current green/sustainable product offerings.
Is the sustainability movement sustaining the wrong thing: a broken system? How can regenerative be used as a complement and catalyst to creating something worthy of sustaining?
This session explores the economic benefits that come from integrating sustainability into a regenerative net-positive decision platform.
Dr. Jonathan Foley
Project Drawdown
TEXTILES
Fabrics Weaving A Regenerative Future
The deleterious and pervasive environmental effects of textile production are alarming to those within the industry. To date, most of these horrors have been held close to the vest for fear that consumers own shock would negatively impact sales.
Today we are seeing incredible textile innovations: thread from mushrooms, bean-filled puffer jackets, wildflowers for insulation, leather from cactus, recovered fish nets into fishnet stockings, plastic bottles upcycled into high performance athletic wear, exchanging old clothing to be woven into something new are just a few of the many regenerative technologies happening today.
This session explores the economic benefits that come with a regenerative approach to innovation in textiles.
APPAREL
Cool Clothing for a World Full of Hot People
The average consumer is now purchasing 60 percent more items of clothing compared to 2000, but each garment is kept half as long. If consumption continues at its current rate, we’ll need three times as many natural resources by 2050 compared to what we used in 2000. Yet 2019 was considered by many to be the year sustainable fashion went mainstream: brands like Nike signed the G7 Fashion Pact; Gucci went carbon neutral; social resale website Poshmark doubled its sellers’ revenues from $1B to $2B. Can the apparel industry implement regenerative practices to ensure sustainability isn’t just another fast fashion fad?
This session explores the economic benefits of a regenerative approach to apparel design, production and disposal.
PACKAGING
Size (of impact) Matters
The Environmental Protection Agency reports that the United States generates almost 80 million tons of packaging waste each year and roughly half of that is used to package single-serve food items. Consumers are increasingly frustrated by too much packaging and the overuse of plastics. Hashtags like #zerowaste and #plasticfree are rapidly growing on social media while innovative packaging solutions like reusable, plant-based, biodegradable, compostable, upcycled, and minimal/no packaging are slow to become the norm.
Eco-friendly packaging with a simple scoring system that communicates regenerative business practices offers an enormous opportunity for differentiation.
This session explores the economic benefits of a regenerative approach to packaging.
CLOSING KEYNOTE
Diversity is Imperative for Regeneration
Monoculture in business can be as destructive as it is in nature.
There is clear evidence that companies with a higher proportion of women in decision-making roles continue to generate higher margins, greater profits, and better total return to shareholders. Moreover, diversity across both gender and culture similarly improves performance.
It is a little known fact that American scientist, inventor and women’s rights campaigner, Eunice Newton Foote first discovered the greenhouse effect in 1856. Foote’s seminal experiment was ingeniously homemade. One might wonder how the approach to global warming would have differed had she been fully recognized.
In biology, regeneration is the process of renewal, restoration, and growth that makes genomes, cells, organisms, and ecosystems resilient to natural fluctuations or events that cause disturbance or damage. Every species is capable of regeneration, from bacteria to humans. To renew means “to resume” after interruption. To restore means “to bring back” or reinstate. To grow means “to progress to maturity.”
How can we better support diversity in order to progress to maturity as a thriving business culture?
HOSTED RECEPTION
Join Us for Wine, Beer and Bites
Gather to celebrate the day with ReGenFriends.
The Presidio Trust has partnered with James Beard award-winning chef Traci Des Jardins to offer catering. A native of Northern California, Traci Des Jardins has six restaurants in San Francisco, including three at the Presidio, in partnership with the Presidio Trust: The Commissary, Arguello, and TRANSIT. The Commissary has been selected as one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Top 100 Restaurants in Northern California for two consecutive years. Her other award-winning restaurants include Jardinière, Mijita Cocina Mexicana, and Public House.
Traci Des Jardins is a two-time James Beard award-winner and has earned a number of industry accolades. She sits on the board of La Cocina, a San Francisco based non-profit business incubator. She is a deeply committed activist and philanthropist working with hunger relief organizations such as Share Our Strength, Citymeals On-Wheels, and other non-profits such as amfAR.
